������Ƶ

I cast my first presidential ballot in 1968 for Hubert Humphrey. Admittedly, I was 5 and the vote took place in my kindergarten classroom, but I like to think I showed admirable judgment in a race that ended with Richard Nixon in the White House.

Some are drawing comparisons these days between that fractious, troubled election season and the current campaign, which formally kicks off today in Iowa, with the first primary ballots being cast in the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination races. While the 1968 campaign was in fundamental ways a game changer, the 2016 race stands to make even greater and perhaps more lasting changes to electoral politics in the United States, particularly at the presidential level.

Coming toward the end of a year in which Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and on the heels of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the election saw the rise of a nakedly racist third-party candidate, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, as well as the manifestation of what later became known as the Republican Party’s “Southern strategy.” The latter focused on policies popular with disaffected white Southerners, pandering to their anger over civil rights evolution and changes in race relations.

Running as the nominee of the American Independent Party, Wallace pulled 13.5 percent of the vote, actually carrying five Southern states and winning 46 electoral votes.

It was the most successful independent run in nearly 60 years — one that invites comparison to this year’s bid by another pandering populist, Donald Trump, who though technically running as a Republican is more accurately seen as an opportunistic independent. His calculated bet from the beginning has been that the GOP primaries presented an easier path to the general election, so strictly as a business decision, campaigning as a Republican would enhance his odds.

While Wallace’s campaign was built on his appeal to white supremacists, Trump’s has no similarly singular ideological underpinning. His campaign appeals to dominant culture arrogance and privilege, in particular attracting support from people who bristle at the changes that multiculturalism and the continued evolution of America’s civil rights movement have brought.

Trump fans love him because he “says what he believes” without a care in the world about “political correctness.” They envy his ability to swagger about slurring Mexicans and Muslims, characterizing women like some sexist knuckle-dragger from the 1950s and talking smack about China, all the while hurling juvenile invective at his opponents and bragging about his poll numbers.

Secretly, many fantasize they’d be just like him, if only they had a billion dollars and no concerns about being fired from jobs or shunned by peers.

Wallace was every bit as boorish, but he lacked the tools that Trump uses to be both a disruptive force and one with potentially long-lasting effects.

I had a colleague once who described his personal savings account as his “f*** you fund,” something he sought to grow large enough that he could offer our employer a few choice words, the middle finger and his resignation. Trump’s extraordinary personal wealth serves the same purpose in his presidential bid, liberating him from any sense of restraint and putting his out there for mass consumption.

Self Funded And Media Savvy

Could this be the beginning of a trend? As we’ve seen in recent days, Trump’s continued presence atop GOP polls has drawn the interest of another politician with the resources to self-fund: former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also a billionaire.

The rich have often played presidential politics in the past — Ross Perot, Mitt Romney and Nelson Rockefeller come quickly to mind — but usually in the guise of partisan ideology or, in the case of Perot, through specific positions on a handful of high-profile issues.

Not so much Trump, who though suddenly developing beliefs and positions in this campaign designed to appeal to certain GOP base segments (evangelicals, the under-educated and poorly informed, low-income angry whites) is no party platform or issues guy. At earlier points in both the campaign and his career, he’s held positions different from those he’s adopted now and prominently supported Democratic candidates for office.

Part of Trump’s success is attributable to a skill fueling the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, another candidate this cycle whose appeal is less partisan and more cult of personality: Media savvy. Both Trump and Sanders have shown a mastery of social media that distinguishes them significantly from their opponents.

With nearly 6 million Twitter followers and an itchy posting finger, Trump uses that megaphone provocatively and often. Sanders’ 2.5 million Facebook fans and well trafficked website have enabled him to raise millions online from with far less effort than the traditional means used by other candidates. The has come from a record number of donors for this stage in any presidential campaign in history.

Trump combines an understanding of social media with an understanding of traditional news and entertainment media honed by 30 years as a national business celebrity. And he’s using that one-two punch to lethal effect against experienced pols whose media skills look wan by comparison: The digital era difference between the billionaire huckster and, say, a Ben Carson or John Kasich is, to borrow a descriptor from the Donald, “yuge.”

In such an environment, partisan traditions and party control can seem outdated, at times — quaint, even. Trump has publicly played coy at various points in the campaign as to whether he’d run as an independent if GOP leaders didn’t “treat him nicely.” Last week, he skipped the high-profile, nationally televised final Republican debate before the Iowa vote, with second-tier opponents Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee — winners of the last two GOP presidential caucuses in Iowa, who stood by like embarrassed cuckolds as Trump openly wooed their former supporters.

By the time the presidential campaign reaches Hawaii — March 6 for the Republicans, March 26 for the Democrats — both parties’ races may look far different than they do now.

Sanders has similarly followed a contrarian path, pressuring Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton , including one unsanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. The DNC is expected to grudgingly support the other four debates, but the Feb. 4 affair, is being organized by MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader and openly flouts DNC rules.

Like Trump, Sanders’ historic regard for the party whose nomination he now seeks has been negligible. A career-long independent democratic socialist, Sanders only became a Democrat last year to participate in the presidential race. Though he’s often caucused with Dems in the Senate, he hasn’t played in their electoral games, instead using a personal organization built over a 45-year career in Vermont politics to reliably win local and federal offices.

With the votes not yet even counted in Iowa, it’s too early to gauge the significance of the above dynamics for the long term. By the time the presidential campaign reaches Hawaii — March 6 for the Republicans, March 26 for the Democrats — both parties’ races may look far different than they do now, particularly if most GOP contenders have dropped out by then or if a weak early showing by Clinton entices Bloomberg to get in.

But just as the major television networks have become less important in an era of ever-expanding choices on cable and digital platforms, the major political parties seem likely to be diminished after 2016.

Outsiders able to fund their own campaigns, engage constituents and — the last big variable remaining — turn out their voters may have created a new model for success this season, one that could bring lasting changes not only to America’s top political races, but to the future of the very offices those candidates seek.