[Darkwolf377]

That's what is depressing - twelve more months of this crap...

I'm already thinking about taking a month-long vacation ending the day after election day '08. I'd love to be away from this stuff until I can just turn on the news and find out who won.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but this stuff no longer interests me, the horse race, I mean. I'm more concerned with everything BUT the crap the media seem most interested in.

[ishabibble]

That is EXACTLY how we lose.

[mrsmel]

I know how you feel. It feels like it’s not about the nation anymore, with the MSM, it’s a game to them. And to the politicians. I’ll be voting of course, but I don’t have much faith in any of them right now. It doesn’t seem like any of them are about the nation and the country, just winning the position.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“... this stuff no longer interests me, the horse race, I mean. I’m more concerned with everything BUT the crap the media seem most interested in.”

It’s like Gresham’s Law; only in this case bad reporting is driving out good reporting.

The overuse of polls, in order to create a “horse race” is just plain bad reporting. It’s beyond slothful and moronic — it allows anyone to “report” on an election, regardless of how little they know about the issues. “Good reporting” would, at a minimum, have something to say about the issues, or the character and abilities of the candidates. (Good reporting would also be “fair and balanced” — but, that’s way too much to hope for any more.)

[alwaysconservative]

We scheduled a Caribbean cruise right for after the 2000 election, and it was just horrible not knowing who won! Those of us who were pubbies met in furtive bunches and, in whispers, asked anybody with a newspaper what was happening, while a Florida election official and her hubby (obviously Democrats) with whom we shared a lunch bemoaned loudly that she couldn’t be there to “help” and wasn’t it “too bad” that Clinton couldn’t run for a third term. Aiyee! My hubby probably had gouge marks in his leg from my fingernails so that I could control myself from screaming at them, LOL!

[The Pack Knight]

One thing I hate about the Perpetual Presidential Beauty Contest, at least this time around, is that it causes a lot of people to ignore another effort that, domestically, is at least as important as electing a Republican President, and that's electing a conservative Congress.

I don't care how many good ideas a Republican President has, it won't amount to anything if he inherits a Democrat or business-as-usual-Republican Congress.

If the nominee really wants to show that he's serious about leading the country and not just winning an election, he could do worse than to push a reform-minded campaign that encompasses the entire ticket, top to bottom. Something like the Contract in 1994, except including both chambers of Congress and the Presidential election. Judging by both the President's and Congress's approval ratings, the voters might just be ready for it.

Pie in the sky, I know. We'll be lucky just to avoid another "local issues" campaign like what worked so well last year.