About This Campaign

It’s the most-often voiced lament of this political season: Why aren’t we focusing on the issues? That question has particular urgency now given the confluence of crises affecting our nation:

• An American dream getting beyond the reach of working people.
• Run-amok financial institutions bringing our economy to the brink of ruin.
• A trade deficit growing at the rate of almost $2 billion a day.
• A president that has seized the prerogative to wage endless war and curb civil liberties.
• A political system corrupted by money and subservient to the wealthy.
• Health care costs spiraling out of control as millions remain uninsured.
• An energy crisis that threatens our way of life and the long-term survival of the planet.

The Institute for America’s Future has launched a seven-week ad campaign calling for “a debate worthy of a great nation in crisis.” The message, laid out in the introductory ad in the series, is simple: We cannot afford to have another election decided based on manufactured controversies, political gamesmanship and gratuitous mudslinging. We cannot afford to have our news media distracted by superficiality or preoccupied with horse-race jockeying.

During these weeks on this website we will give special attention to the challenges that must be the top priorities of our political leadership. Addressing these challenges will require more than the usual deal-making and incrementalism that typically take place in Washington. Political leaders will have to make sharp U-turns from our current policies and take bold actions to repair the pillars of the American ideal.

Those steps will only happen if we demand them. That is why with each ad there will be actions on our website that you can take. We also have specific steps columnists, bloggers and other opinion leaders can take to help drive the kind of national conversation we really need. Check back regularly as we post what they say, and add your own comments. The goal is to create a mandate for progressive change from the bottom up.

We have said on the past that this year has the potential to be a sea-change year. But this is not automatic. The people who have managed to capitalize on the policies that led to today’s misery have made it clear they would rather keep the focus on personalities, on the “culture wars,” on manipulated fears—on anything but the fundamental crises of our economy and our democracy. It is up to us in these next few weeks to make sure that we do not lose this opportunity for change.