The United States and the world are in a very important stage right now.  It is important that we make good decisions now as they will clearly affect us very much in the future.  Many factors are coming together now that could make this time more influential than many.  The European Union is forming more solidly and could become more of a world leader than the US pretty quickly.  Along with this, there is the new threat of war in the Middle East.  The world is also changing in the way we communicate information, in just 5 years, everything has been changed by the internet.  Decisions on the regulation and laws over internet commerce and privacy will need to be carefully created in the next few years.  Also, with the rapid pace of new technology, it is important that we properly fund and guide our research to new heights.  For all of these things, we need an intelligent leader to make the right decisions in these areas.  Since we do not have one, we can only hope that his advisors and our Congress are able to make the correct decisions for him.