Progressives may bemoan it, but there is no credible left in the US at this point. We may on the verge of a new Zeitgeist (I wrote a dairy on this previously) but the conservative Zeitgeist ushered in by Goldwater and brought to power by Reagan is not yet played out and the left is still having to triangulate, with the Overton window being shifted so far to the right.

However, what is unsustainable cannot continue forever, and the reckoning will come sooner or later, at which point the Zeitgeist will shift again, either lurching further right into fascism or to the left, as progressives get their chance to clean up the mess and launch the country in a fresh direction.

Looming on the horizon, however, is the rise of China. What's in store was foreshadowed by the Chinese determination to beat the US in the Olympics by getting more gold -- which they did handily once they focused their energy and intention (qi, yi) on it. The West, principally the Brits, raped China economically in the past, and the Chinese have not forgotten this. There is payback coming, although it may take a couple of decades.

I bring this up here because the longer the conservative era lasts, and the degree to which eventually change does not completely disavow it, the worse the Chinese reaction against the West will be when they take over the reins of global economic might, hence power. A McCain/Palin administration would be disastrous in this regard. McCain would not be able to restrain himself from attempting to further antagonize and humiliate China, and Palin's pseudo-Christian bluster would be even more offensive to them (and Islam) then Cheney's jingoistic war-mongering and Bush's "moral" posturing. The Chinese really, really do not like being humiliated, and they will repay in kind. Be assured of that.