n the gathering light, one could almost be taken back to some grand battlefield of Scottish highlanders

Setting the Stage for Generational Leadership Part One

Fancy Farm is dead! Long live Fancy Farm!

Most of those in attendance at the just completed 2017 Fancy Farm were stunned as to the event dynamics change from the past few years.

Gone were the massive busloads of Mitch McConnell's road warriors of college youth. Gone were the busloads of union members sitting in anticipation of attacking Republican speakers. Gone were the legion of media from faraway places like New York or Washington DC or international wire services, or all the local news networks.

Gone too was the just under the surface tension of an impending Gun Fight at the OK Corral as two massive warring movements - Republicans vs. Democratic- encountered each other on this sacred landscape of political dialogue in West Kentucky.

Gone was the row of massive War Wagons, better known as souped up RV's that served as mobile Command and Control Centers for statewide elections.

The Fancy Farm Picnic traditions continue with the massive cooking of over 19,000 pounds of barbecue, the all day and into the evening bingo games and the 10,000 family members who use the Picnic as a ritual homecoming.

When confronted with these observations about how the Fancy Farm gathering had been downsized, Picnic Political Co-Chairman Mark Wilson commented that "of course the political attendance was smaller because it was a rare year in Kentucky politics in which there were no state and local elections."

At the end of the political speaking from 2:00 pm to 3:45 pm, calm was returning to the small stage and village of Fancy Farm. The politicians came. The politicians pointed fingers in the air and at each other over those who were committing political sins in Frankfort and Washington DC. Nothing had changed on the Kentucky landscape of politics. They were all right and yet they were all wrong in their indignation.

Yet, lurking in the gathering shadows of early evening was the feeling that the 2017 Fancy Farm event was a place holder or peace before the storm coming.

Sometimes, when we are confronted with a twinge of fear or anxiety, the hairs on the back of the neck become excited.

Located some twenty yards from the political speaking area were the massive ten foot high barrels in which fires had been stoked all day for the cooking of pork. In the gathering light, one could almost be taken back to some grand battlefield of Scottish highlanders where men fought each other over issues of freedom from tyranny.

The storm coming will be the fight to change America from the politics of the past 50 years over to the New Politics for the next 30 years. Fancy Farm 2018-2019-2020 will be one of the more important battlefields of American politics from these years.

It was quiet this year.

Strap yourself into a stable seat.

From this point on for the next three years will be classic struggle for the heart and soul of what passes for the American Experiment.