We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds… We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. In God’s name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion! — Howard Beale, “Network”
So far, this presidential cycle has been one for the books. The 1992 cycle featured a similar dynamic with a wealthy outsider running as a third party candidate and capturing the imagination of the press and the people alike. That race also featured generational change, petty sex scandals, an incumbent surprisingly in free-fall from a recent high of 90 percent approval and a right-wing nativist exciting a fairly large segment of the right wing over immigration. It was a roller coaster of a race in which the third party candidate, Ross Perot, of course, even dropped out after the Democratic convention, saying that the Democratic Party was “revitalized” and then joined up again a few months later.
And while the 2000 race was fairly predictably dull throughout, the aftermath was a doozy and the Sarah Palin addition to the 2008 GOP ticket didn’t exactly usher in a staid political campaign of ideas. So, it’s not fair to say that a weird presidential race is unprecedented, but this one is undoubtedly one of the weirdest, at least on the Republican side.