A couple of days ago, a news producer asked my opinion on what was special about the upcoming presidential elections. I was having a bad day and without thinking gave a standard talking points answer – some nonsense about high voter turnout, a longer election cycle…blah, blah, blah. What I should have said was:

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of the 2008 elections…this is the first open presidential election in more than 50 years, we are fighting two wars on foreign soil; Democrats have the first viable woman, black, and Latino candidates; Republicans have a Mormon, a bona fide war hero, a cross-dressing former NYC Mayor, and maybe an actor; spouses include the one fighting cancer and her husband’s battles, the actor’s trophy wife, the vegan’s trophy wife, and a former President; the Mormon saves people in his free time, has five hot sons, and may even be related to Billy the Kid (really); the former NYC Mayor’s kids don’t like Daddy; the war hero’s sons are serving in the military; a billionaire may put his hat in the ring; bloggers are uniting and conquering; Iran is building nukes; Fidel Castro is dead dying; campaign spending is likely to top a billion dollars, and even though all of the drama will be captured on YouTube for the next 15 months – the nominees will be decided sooner than ever before.

There has to be something inspiring in this ongoing soap opera that will get the 100 million nonvoters into a voting booth. Stay tuned…