Larry Sabato over at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics has an interesting article over at his website paralleling the central role the Civil War played in US politics with the role Vietnam has played and will play in our current politics. He hypothesizes that "for only the second time in our nation's history, the bitterness of a bloody, lost war will shadow national politics until generational replacement has removed all the brave soldiers who experienced the event first-hand." In other words, just as the Civil War shaped a number of elections following the conflict, so too has Vietnam affected presidential elections.

The first President elected following the Civil War, of course, was Union General Ulysses S. Grant, and veterans of the war would continue to play a central role in presidential politics through the turn of the 20th century (William McKinley, a veteran, was reelected in 1900). Some elections even focused on the candidates' service or lack thereof (Grover Cleveland's "draft dodging" was a huge issue), just like today.

The Civil War did not only play a central role in Presidential contests every four years; rather, it played an enormous role in defining the parties for decades to come. For years following the war, the Democrats were constantly blamed for being unpatriotic, mainly because their base included the "Solid South" which had seceded from the Union. They were deridingly referred to as the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion," a term coined almost 20 years after the end of the conflict that was still used as late as 1928 (talk about a lack of civil discourse in campaigns!). It was not until America was mired in the Great Depression 77 years after the end of the Civil War that the Democrats were once again able to be the majority party in the nation.

Although I'm sure that Sabato does not believe that Vietnam will shape the party coalitions for another handful of decades like the Civil War, he nonetheless finds an interesting comparison between the two wars. He writes,

Much like the Civil War, the Vietnam War continues to roil our elections almost thirty years after the inglorious collapse of U.S.-supported South Vietnam. Arguably, Vietnam has already played a significant role in as many presidential elections as the Civil War ever did--at least in a headline sense. It was THE ISSUE in 1968 and 1972, but still mattered greatly in 1976 (the amnesty matter for those young men who had fled the country over the draft); 1980, 1984, and 1988 (the "weak on defense" issue for the Democrats as a result of the party's post-Vietnam dovish tilt), 1992 and 1996 (Clinton's draft evasion while running against war heroes Bush Sr. and Bob Dole), 2000 (Bush's National Guard situation), and now 2004.

Vietnam has indeed been a central part of the political discourse for going on 36 years now, and I think it's possible that it will remain a central part of our politics "until generational replacement has removed all the brave soldiers who experienced the event first-hand." However, I think it's much more likely that this election will be the last in which the war plays a central role in the campaign (unless John McCain or Chuck Hagel runs against John Kerry or another Vietnam vet in four years, which I don't see happening).

1988 was the first election in which a candidate for national office was the right age to have served in Vietnam, and Vice Presidential candidate Dan Quayle opted to serve in the Indiana National Guard rather than go to Southeast Asia. This did not play a major role in the election.

In 1992 and 1996, as Sabato writes, the Republicans nominated war heroes to run against alleged draft dodger Bill Clinton, to no avail. Bush 41 and Dole, however, were heroes of WWII, so the Vietnam issue was never fully flushed out. Moreover, the economy (bad in 1992, good in 1996) meant significantly more to the American people than a war decades earlier.

2000 was the first contest between two Vietnam era candidates, but Al Gore's service in Vietnam as a member of the media did not provide a large enough contrast for most Americans to see a real difference. As a result, George W. Bush's lack of Vietnam service did not play a major role in the campaign.

This brings us to this year's campaign, the last two weeks of which have focused on Vietnam. While the police action of the 1960s and 70s will undoubtedly continue to play a role in this campaign, the more significant part of this election is that it is the first to feature a candidate too young to have participated in the Vietnam War.

Kerry's selection of John Edwards as his running mate has begun the change of generations in American politics, like 1952 and 1988. When Eisenhower added WWII veteran Richard Nixon to his ticket, little could he have known that Nixon's generation would play a dominant role in presidential elections for the next 44 years. Bush's selection of Quayle in 1988 similarly brought on a changing of the guard as Quayle's Vietnam generation would lead America through the next millennium.

John Edwards could play this same role of opening the door of Presidential politics for his generation. Younger politicians, like Barack Obama, Eliot Spitzer and Mark Warner for the Democrats and Jeb Bush, Bill Frist and George Allen for the Democrats, not mired in controversies over Vietnam service, could take the mantle from the previous generation and create a new political order and thus remove Vietnam from its central role in our national debate.

As a result, although 2004 is the first election in which the candidates' participation in the Vietnam War has played a central role, it should also be the last. The issue of Vietnam may not be resolved "until generational replacement has removed all the brave soldiers who experienced the event first-hand," but I think it's fairly safe to say that our candidates won't be discussing it in 20 years.