Sorry for not having posted for the last week and a half or so.  Basic laziness is what happened there…

So…I’ve decided that about a month before the first primary is as good a time as any to really start ramping up coverage for next year’s election.  Since I’ve posted last (and definitely since I last posted an election blog post), the Republican tables seemed to have turned.  Although Mr. 9/11 himself still seems to be topping the polls, the talk everywhere seems to have changed, particularly since the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.

Although Rudy still is getting a lot of view about whether he’s actually a Republican (seems to be one about as much as Mike Bloomberg is, which could explain a lot), the big talk for the last week or so is between the religious front runners: Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.  Huckabee was getting some talk before the debate, too, since he was and is doing well in Iowa, a key primary state.

So, after the debate, the battle seems to be amongst who is more Christian.  Both know that they need to appeal to Christians if they want to be voted, particularly in the South and West.  Unfortunately for Romney, I think that Huckabee has a monopoly in a lot of places if it ends up being down to Romney and Huckabee.

Romney’s been quoted as saying that religion shouldn’t matter, but the fact is, it does.  We saw this in 2004, where it was part of getting President Bush re-elected.  There will be a lot of people who won’t vote for Romney due to the mere fact that he’s a Mormon, even if the idea that he follows something a little different making him ineligible to the majority is absurd to me.  To a lot of people, though, it will matter.  They’ll find a certain point of view important, and vote on that.  I’m not going to say today whether I think that’s right, except that people will vote according to their priorities.

On the real political front, though, we know that Huckabee is doing well in Iowa, but where else?  I need to look it up some more, but I think he still has an uphill battle in the political arena, as much as I think Romney has one in the religious one.  Romney’s speech on Thursday may help allay some fears, but who knows.  It could only make things worse for him.  Only time will tell…

In addition to considering myself to be nearer to the political center (which I know the partisans on both sides hate to hear – hehe), though perhaps leaning left, I’ve also developed into something of a cynic.

I’ve written before about my draining faith in the abilities of either party to lead effectively, especially on the federal level. However, I also know that due to the dumb way our system is setup, I’ve got to support somebody who’s going to have a chance of winning, even if there’s someone else I might like to support.

I also know that having one party in power for too long is never a good thing. That is why I wasn’t all too surprised to see that the Republicans had taken over in my hometown, after the Democrats have had control for 20 years. Really, I wasn’t too surprised because the writing was on the wall. For the last one or two elections, the new Republican mayor has had the highest amount of votes, but the Dems got to elect the mayor, because they had the majority of members on the Board of Directors.

I think this is a good thing. Now, I’m unsure of what direction the town will take with the new administration, could be better or worse. What I do know is that having one “dynasty,” so to speak, can only lead to complacency and corruption. Consider, if you will, the administration of former Connecticut Governor John Rowland. He effectively disgraced his office by his actions (steering contracts in turn for favors). Now, the Republicans might have taken a hard hit for the office if the new Governor Jodi Rell hadn’t been willing to make reforms in ethics. So, they kept the office at the last election, and she even got a large vote from Democrats.

Likewise, change is needed from time to time in the federal government. I feel that almost anybody would be better than the current President, no matter which party they come from. I think the country needs a new kind of leadership plan, whether is be a Democrat or a “traditional” conservative, who will work to get respect back for this country, which will probably take years to get back.

The Republicans got a wake up call last year when the Dems took over, who…well, aren’t quite living up to it. They’ve got some work to do if they want to keep the Congress. We’ll see how that goes over.

Anyway, my point is, change is good, and necessary in politics. Having one party (or one bi-family dynasty – *ahem*) in power for two long is not good. So, from time to time, fresh blood should come in to shake things up.

Anyway, I guess I consider this my precursor post to the full start of my Election 2008 coverage, which I’ll start somewheres about halfway through December.

As I mentioned in the editorial I posted on Tuesday, President Bush recently vetoed a water projects bill passed overwhelmingly by Congress.  Here’s his reasoning:

<blockquote>In his veto message, Bush complained that Congress added about $8 billion in projects to the bill in conference committee after each house had passed its own version. </blockquote>

For those who don’t follow legislative politics, a conference committee is a group of Senators from each chamber (usually equal in number of members from each party) who work out differences in the bill, since a single version has to go to the President.  Now, while it may be true they could have added money to the bill, the fact is, the new version of the bill had to get passed again.

That’s right, it had to go back to each chamber and get passed again.  And it did, still with a massive veto-proof majority.  And the President still vetoed it.  He’s grasping at straws here, trying to look strong, while the veto of this bill only makes him look foolish.

You know, by the time I got done saying my editorial last Thursday, I was beginning to wonder if my description of Bush as the “playground bully” was too harsh of a description.  I thought then I should have made it less harsh, or have made my description of Congress as focusing on non-passable legislation as “only serving their electoral agenda” more harsh.  However, since the bill got vetoed, I’ve begun rethinking it, and now mostly stand by it.

Is he now really a lame duck?  You decide.