5th most important election!

After cutting open a live chicken this morning to examine the entrails, the picture is still pretty fuzzy. I still think a Bush win more likely than a Kerry win, but obviously it was easier to pick the winner of the Yankees - Red Sox series (even if I got the margin wrong).

I don't agree that this is the "most important election" ever or even in my lifetime. As far as I'm concerned the following elections were more important:

1. Carter vs Ford 1976 - After Watergate and the Nixon resignation, this election was important just because it showed that the system still worked
2. Carter vs Reagan 1980 - Carter was an extremely weak President and this election was between those who wanted to manage America's decline gracefully and those who wanted America to rise again
3. Bush vs Gore 2000 - The idea of a President Kerry doesn't put me off anywhere near as much as a President Gore would have. He was clearly loony at the time (and this cost him the election, which he should have won handily) and has only proven more loony during the past 4 years
4. McGovern vs Nixon 1972 - regardless of whether the Vietnam War was right or wrong, it would have been a disaster to allow pacifism to assume a dominant role in US politics