We have seen a lot of short-lived debates in the media since the Democratic candidates have narrowed to two possibilities. The weekend before the New Hampshire primary we were hearing questions about whether or not Hillary believably broke down and publicly showed she is capable of human emotion. The triviality of these discussions has grown in intensity during the past few weeks.

Samantha Power had to formally resign from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster.” Geraldine Ferraro resigned from the Clinton campaign after suggesting that Obama has achieved as much as he has because of our collective white guilt, not because he’s an especially inspiring figure when race isn’t taken into consideration.

The only thing that is surprising about these situations is the consistency with which these news cycles have shifted between the two major players. It’s starting to look like a tennis match, each side getting its chance on offense for one strike against the other side before the same is expected in reverse.

For the most part, these aren’t things anyone cares about. The drama of it all doesn’t even touch the extremes of the most boring personal existences. Any construction worker could and probably does call Hillary Clinton a lot more than “monster” and the fact that this event was paid any attention at all just goes to show that the media either has nothing else to talk about or that it can’t tell the difference between an important story and total nonsense.

The most recent discussion, though, is markedly different. And we only need to look back at John Kerry to see how likely it is that the Democrats will lose in November.

Kerry finished a degree at Yale and volunteered for multiple tours in Vietnam between 1966 and 1970. No one who voted in the 2004 election was unaware of what George Bush was doing those same years. Despite this, the Bush campaign was able to spin the discussion enough to convincingly suggest that Kerry was the least patriotic option to lead the country. How did this happen? Were there actions involved? Did Kerry actually do anything to suggest that he was untrustworthy because he didn’t care enough about America? The answer is obviously “no.” What is worse is that a more accurate answer would be that an action wasn’t even required. Rhetoric and confusion worked just fine.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright will be the 2008 equivalent of the Swiftboat saga four years earlier. Wright’s suggestion that “God will damn America for taking innocent lives” is all the Republican party needs to put John McCain into office. Simple language can have complicated effects and when we take Kerry’s criticism of the Vietnam war (a criticism which was 30 years old) alongside Wright’s (current) suggestion that America itself is flawed and malevolent, all we can reasonably expect is that Karl Rove’s job will be a cakewalk during the general election.

Since Hillary has virtually no chance of winning the nomination, despite her strong position in Pennsylvania, this leaves only one plausible course for the two parties in the coming months. Choosing the smartest, most inspiring candidate will likely be a self-destructive move for the Democrats in November. And the saddest part of the Obama equation is that his downfall will be caused by someone’s else’s actions, constant video replays of an angry church sermon and the inability of the white majority to separate Obama from the racial context and culture that created him.

So it’s an election year. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that people are more interested than usual. Voter turnout, especially on the Democratic side, is far greater than any previous year and I think there are a few obvious reason for this.

First, September 11th is still a primary driver. We learned on that day that the potential for disaster and tragedy is present on a daily basis and that there is virtually no way to insulate ourselves from this fact. Being wealthy, successful, intelligent, or well-liked won’t protect you. We saw it all happen in real time and we’ve had trouble sleeping ever since. It made us more aware of the fact that the world doesn’t end when we leave American soil. We learned we are actually vulnerable and that our lives are not predictable or certain. We care more now about issues.

But one of the most significant effects of the event was a decreased motivation to create and use our imaginations. Life seems much bigger than we are and and this has lead to the belief that real art can only be created by external forces, that art is life itself and that any attempt to deny this in favor of our own ideas will amount to hubris and little else. This is the second cause of this recent surge in political interest. Nothing else is going on. Movies and music have failed to stimulate us. Celebrities aren’t larger-than-life figures they way they have been in the past. Many of them are made on reality tv and we know full well that they’ll be forgotten in fifteen minutes. In the wake of this, we have used the Democratic primary to help pick up some of the slack.

Anyone who has tried to predict the outcomes of these state races has only wound up making a total fool of themselves. Virtually nothing has gone the way conventional wisdom would suggest. The most reasonable prediction at the start of these races would have been a selection of the candidates with the firmest hold on the Washington establishment, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. McCain’s national polling numbers did not support this at the start of the race but if we look back to 2004 we can see a similar set of circumstances in how John Kerry was able to turn things around and win his party’s nomination. The general idea is that polling numbers get swayed by media phenomena (Howard Dean, Rudy Guiliani) but when people have to actually pull a lever and choose a candidate, we flock right back to what is most familiar.

The Democratic race has violated some of these historical precedents. Momentum has swayed back and forth for both Obama and Clinton. It is rare that something as large and unwieldy as public opinion will find a way to change as many times as it has for these candidates during the last few months. After Obama lost the New Hampshire primary, he should have had an impossible time winning any state that did not have a heavy black population. But the exact opposite wound up being true.

In general, what one would expect, would be that the freshest, most progressive candidate would also be most favorable in the biggest states and on the coasts. But Obama, the dictionary definition of anti-establishment in a presidential arena, won very few of those states (and none of the biggest states, with the exception of Illinois). A tally of victories by the Obama campaign yields some very surprising results: Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, North Dakota. How did Obama do so well in these Red states? Any answer to that question would have to include an acknowledgment that there is much more to this candidacy than meets the eye.

I have been in South Korea for 4 months now. It hasn’t been an easy time by any measure. Everything about this culture has confused me and I don’t see solutions for these problems. This decade, I have spent a lot of time staring at a computer screen. I know I’ll regret this when I am older. I know that I will feel as though I wasted my twenties. Nothing has changed in the last few months and since my most recent birthday, I have started to feel as though this may be what the rest of my life will look like.

What if I am not as talented or smart as I think I am? What if I suffer from extreme narcissistic delusions? What if this is just another example of how typical my personality really is?

It is starting to seem more and more possible to me that I am no different from the exact people I detest, find boring and can’t respect. I literally have a hard time looking in the mirror.

I’m not sure why I am doing this. It is true that I have a lot of free time on my hands and, like anybody else, I believe I possess a viewpoint that tends to be more intelligent, intense and creative than the majority of what is available in the public media.

I am 27 years old now. I have very little going for me in terms of social connections and life accomplishments. I need to get going somehow. I need to correct these problems or another 10 years are going to evaporate into nothing.

I do not have a focus here. I don’t know what my intent is exactly.  Maybe this page will be a good catalyst.