Typically, opinion essays have a short shelf life. However, this excerpt from an essay produced by the inestimable analyst Michael Barone for the forthcoming Almanac of American Politics 2006 is atypical. It is a keeper.

In "American Politics In The Networking Era" he offers juicy bits such as, "Changes in politics resemble changes in the larger society. For several decades now, we have seen the change from industrial America to post-industrial America, from an industrial nation characterized by centralization and large command-and-control organizations to a post-industrial, Information Age nation characterized by decentralization and network-connected organizations." But in the main, it is a sharp-eyed look at the American electorate and how politics and campaigning are changing.