John Zogby's The Way We'll Be attempts to take recent polling data and extrapolate predictions about the way we'll be (obviously). At times it interesting. Zogby talks about using where one shops as a predictor of how one votes (turns out that Wal-Mart shoppers are Republicans). His predictions of a younger generation that's more globally aware, multilateralist in foreign affairs, cooperative at work, cosmopolitan in proclivities, is all interesting, but hardly news taken as discrete data points.

It's interesting, though, when looked at in the aggregate. If I had to venture to sum it all up, Zogby predicts that we're all becoming much more "elite" at least elite in the way that conservatives define it. In the future, we're all going to be cooperative, environmentally aware people more in touch with our spirituality and more concerned with others' well being than we've been in the past. We'll drive our Prius, sip out latte, and perhaps meditate. Zogby doesn't quite say that, but it seems like a logical extension of the data.

To me, this puts the current election in an incredibly interesting light and represents a very visible cultural shift. The vociferousness of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin camps, viewed in this light, really do represent radically different ways of viewing the world. The Clinton era saw some of this, but it was still mired in the 1960s. This may be the last gasp of that generation in a political sense. But if Zogby is correct, this restoration may be but a brief vista on a radically changing landscape. ( )