Although they might not want to admit it, I'm betting many people reading this issue of CityBeat have something in common with Bristol Palin. The 20-year-old daughter of erstwhile Tea Party leader and half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was too busy learning routines for ABC's 'Dancing with the Stars' and forgot to vote in last week's midterm elections.  

It was a time when politics were upside down, when elites were rarely mentioned and a backlash had already occurred when Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. It was a time when college campuses were battlegrounds, when the angriest voices were found there and on urban streets and had faces and names.