In other words in the last 13 Presidential elections in a row, there’s been an “administration candidate” to stand up proudly and publicly against the opposition party’s claims that the national situation is dire and desperate. Even when these defenders of things-as-they-are fail at the ballot box, they still serve to balance the public discourse and to place complaints and self-pity in a more reasonable context.

This time, however, President Bush can’t run for re-election (he’s prohibited by the Constitution, of course) and the aging, ailing Vice President Cheney chose (wisely) not to become a candidate. As a result, even the top Republican contenders promote change and say little or nothing to defend the record of an incumbent GOP administration. It’s not just that George W. Bush is controversial: he actually draws a much higher approval rating than the Democratic leaders of Congress. Even if the incumbent were conspicuously popular, however, those who ran to replace him would want to differentiate their candidacies from the lame-duck administration in which they had no prominent role. It’s easier and more energizing for a candidate to sketch his bold, sunlit new visions for the nation, rather than rationalizing all the shadowy policy twists and turns of the immediate past and justifying all the up and down occurrences under his predecessor.

Without a sitting chief executive or a loyal Veep as a candidate, no one’s forced to stand up for the current situation, or explain recent decisions, or remind voters that we’re actually doing relatively well, all things considered. Instead, all presidential contenders, Republican as well as Democrat, bid for support by demanding “change” and denouncing things as they are. In prior campaigns, there’s been an administration candidate to argue for staying the course, but not this time.

Obama and Clinton try to defame McCain by claiming he’d provide a “third term for Bush,” but the Republican standard bearer wisely refuses to accept that designation. He’s differed with enough Bush policies (especially regarding run-away government spending and the early mismanagement of the war) to run credibly as a candidate of conservative change. Those who support the Bush administration (more than one third the electorate, remember) will back McCain anyway, so avoiding the enthusiastic embrace of the administration costs him nothing while giving him a better chance to appeal to independents and wavering Democrats. It’s not that the status quo is indefensible, in other words, but just that there’s no presidential contender who’d gain by defending it.

In this situation, feverish alarmists inevitably drown out the voices of reassurance, and the public feels persuaded of a prevailing state of crisis and desperation. It becomes fashionable, in other words, and all but inevitable, for citizens to view our national condition in grim and frightening terms, at the same time that they speak to friends and family (and even to pollsters) of their manifold reasons for private satisfaction gratitude and optimism.

A new administration – even a new McCain administration – is likely to confirm that optimism when the press provides the breathless, admiring “honeymoon” coverage they usually provide any new president (yes, even Republicans). Since the national mood reflects media coverage and political maneuvering more than it responds to actual conditions for real American families, it’s safe to assume that attitudes toward the state of the nation will inevitably improve by the beginning of 2009.