The Inside Passage

THE SAVVY CRUISERS came to Seattle a day early to experience the delights of Pike Place Market and Copper River salmon, which has just come into season. The rest of us embarked on Saturday morning and set sail that afternoon for the third annual WEEKLY STANDARD cruise, this year heading north to Alaska.

During the kick-off panel about the coming election, Bill Kristol noted that in 1951 and 1967 you couldn’t have predicted who the candidates for president would be the following year. “Things tend to happen more suddenly and unpredictably” in elections during war time, he explained. Fred Barnes echoed those sentiments, reminding attendees of the great media expectations that existed for the presidential campaigns of Howard Baker, Ted Kennedy, and Gary Hart–as well as the unexpected victory of the unknown Jimmy Carter in 1976 and the unexpected loss of George H.W. Bush in 1992, after he had looked all but invincible following the Gulf War. Elections are always volatile, Barnes noted, and this one may prove to be more so than others.