Could the 2008 presidential election be part of a decades-long (often dirty and violent) struggle between America's competing power elites? According to this theory, the traditional East Coast money represented by families such as the Kennedys are the 'Yankee' faction. The nouveau riche, Sunbelt money emerging from World War II whose wealth and power are tied to oil and military conflict (characterized by the Bush family) are the 'Cowboy' faction. This idea was first expressed in a 1976 out-of-print book "The Yankee and Cowboy War" by Carl Oglesby. The fact that Barack Obama emerged from obscurity with such powerful backing tells me that this election might be about the Yankee faction positioning itself to take back control in Washington. Democracy seems to take a back seat in all of this, but it's an interesting theory. Is it just so much conspiracy theory or is there some reality behind it? Any thoughts?

Here's a quote by Oglesby that gives an indication where he's coming from:

"The assassination of John Kennedy and the downfall of Richard Nixon have both been viewed as isolated moral disasters for American democracy... But these two events represent neither isolated disasters nor a generalized failure of American institutions but something almost beyond the ability of ordinary people even to see, much less control. The two events - Dallas and Watergate - are actually concrete links in a chain of related and ominous events passing through the entire decade in which they occurred and beyond. And this chain of events itself represents only the violent eruptions of a deeper struggle of rival power elites identified here as Yankees and Cowboys."

Carl Oglesby: The Yankee and Cowboy War - The Education Forum