Every election is about "the future," to the point that candidates intoning about their "vision" for America is little more than a cliché of electoral politics. So what should the 2008 presidential election be "about"? Should it be about the candidates' biographies, their records of achievement, their character? Should it be about the failures, real and imagined, of the Bush administration? Should it be about the economy? How about the war?

American greatness is predicated on American ingenuity and a long history of self-sufficiency. We have a knack for adopting, adapting and innovating. But nothing lasts forever, certainly nothing that's neglected. As Stephen Flynn argues in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, America's "reservoir of self-suffiency is being depleted."