David Gerlernter -- a conservative academic.

From inside the walls and halls of academia, the bastion of liberal thought and inspiration, there is at least one brave and committed conservative voice:  David Gerlernter  professor of computer science at Yale and the author, most recently, of America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats), just published byEncounter Books.  He asks this question to introduce the themes of this new book:

There is a mystery about this election.  The slanted national press and Romney’s weaknesses are well understood, but a large gap separates these explanations from the fact that needs explaining: this election will be close.  How is that possible when Obama has shown himself to be the worst president in modern history?  And when Romney (on the other hand) is unexciting but safe, serious, solid—just the right sort of man to shelter all sorts of tempest-tost Americans in a storm?

Indeed!  Maybe there isn't a mystery about this election.  Maybe we are simply seeing the fruits of a massive breakdown in our society.  The end of the can-do, self reliant individualism philosophy that  built the country and  the morphing to a welfare statism, collectivist philosophy that levels incomes and results in a"fairer" society premised on social justice.  This is an important election.