The L Word

David Kurtz wonders what kind of mandate Obama will have if he wins:

...what will an Obama landslide translate into in the first year he's in office? It's not clear to me. One of the most toxic effects of the decline of the two parties as political institutions and the rise of the modern TV-based political campaign, with its cult of personality politics, is that the election becomes a referendum on the candidates themselves, rather than on broad policies or platforms.