When I complained that nothing actually happened in the movie Lost in Translation, people would patiently try to explain to me that it was a “mood movie.” I’ve been thinking about that lately. I was talking to a friend the other day and we were trying to figure out what are the national issues that are driving the election. There aren’t any really. Gas prices, which all of us have made so much of and ranked so high in the polls? It’s completely disappeared. The only issue really is Iraq, and it is a strange one, because the Democrats aren’t offering a clear alternative nor does the public seem to be behind any stark alternative like a pull-out of our troops. Instead, people simply don’t like what they’ve been seeing (understandably), and they want to send a message about it. It’s a mood election, and that mood is sour and people are going to let the powers-that-be in Washington know it. At least that’s as close as I can come to a grand theory of the election at the moment.