Today's must-read article, which I'm a few days late getting to, is Michael Barone's big picture summary of "American Politics in the Networking Era," excerpted from his regular summary chapter in the Almanac of American Politics, a must-own book for political junkies. He makes two seminal claims--both of which are still subject to debate--about the election of 2004. The first is that the Bush campaign was the true Internet success story of the cycle; the second is that we are on the springboard of a new alignment of American politics centered on an emerging Republican majority.

On the first, Barone marshalls the right evidence: BC '04's 6 million email addresses, 1.4 million active volunteers and shrewd, state-of-the-art targeting of potential supporters by their socio-economic backgrounds and consumer tastes. It's all impressive, but I remain a skeptic about the huge numbers (how many of those email addresses were bought, not grown? how many of those volunteers exist on paper only?). I also think Barone is conflating "networks" with "markets" and thus arguing that a sophisticated top-down contact from the campaign to people based on their magazine subscriptions, favorite TV shows, and the like is the same thing as building a laterally connected movement. It's telling that he opens his essay by writing, "This is an America where Microsoft overtakes IBM, where FedEx overtakes the U.S. Postal Service, where Wal-Mart overtakes Sears"--all examples of dynamic organizations, to be sure, but hardly the networked models of the future. After all, open-source software like Linux and Firefox is undermining Microsoft, and networked markets like eBay are steadily eating away at bricks-and-mortar sales.

As for the second claim, that BC '04's successful turnout drive has "reshaped the electorate" and is leading to a "natural majority" for the Republicans, again Barone cites many impressive statistics (including the fact that Dems have lost their 4 point edge in general party ID and are now tied with the Republicans at 37% each). Demography and religion, Barone argues, are trending in the GOP's favor too.

This may all be true (and I'll leave it to Ruy Teixiera and John Judis to debate the fine points). But I was struck by one oddity in Barone's argument. Nowhere in his essay does he ever mention 9-11 or the Iraq War. And without those two seminal, defining and traumatic events, it's hard to understand the 2004 election or the future. I'm not sure which way things will turn, but I know in my gut that both 9-11 and the fact of being at war have helped stampede some important fraction of the electorate towards the incumbent party. The pessimist in me sees that as an embrace of a harder America, one that cares less for civil liberties, international legitimacy, even truthfulness from its leaders--as long as we're at war and the more important thing is to win, to stand by the flag, the President, and so on. The optimist remembers what happens to war-time leaders once the crisis is over (think Churchill after WWII, if you want one example).

Either way, I think the jury's still out on both of Barone's big claims. But if you want one very good summary expression of how the politics of our time are being changed both by technology and demography, read his piece.