Signing On

Greetings. I'm happy to be joining this new blog, and adding my two cents about the nation we live in. Let me get this out there from the get go: I'm on the political left of the center. I will almost certainly cast a vote for President Obama in 2012. Now that that's out of the way, on to the blogging.

Let's try to make sense of things as they are for a minute. In November of 2008, the Democrats were unbeatable. In November of 2010, the Republicans had rolled up insurmountable majorities. Just like that! Amazing how fast things can change. True to form, we all assumed deep meanings from the election results. The President was dead, done for legislatively, incapable of getting anything more. Well, suddenly the Lame-Duck Congress comes to town and passes previously impossible things, like tax compromises and Don't Ask Don't Tell. Suddenly, the impossible was possible.

Now, John Boehner is the Speaker of the House. The GOP is voting in the House to repeal the Health Care Law, but people seem less enthusiastic than they were. The President's approval, which had been dropping throughout 2010, suddenly appears to be back at 50% levels. Does any of this make sense? No. None of it does. Welcome to the day of eye-blink speed political winds, and change being a permanent part of campaigns.

So what should we know right now? Welcome back to a Presidential cycle, the "fun" stuff. By now, I think we all expected a Republican to have entered the Presidential race by now, and yet, even after November's victories, none have. I think that's the most important thing we should know about the current state of political affairs. Clearly, either the GOP thinks it cannot beat President Obama, or it is trying to figure out how to avoid nominating the least viable candidate for President in the Tea Party Era. Neither is overly exciting for conservatives.

There's a second thing to watch though- Senate retirements. Last cycle, the Republicans saw massive retirements, from swing state Senators, early on. Retirements in Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, and Missouri, as well as Kentucky and Kansas, had the political class talking about potential irrelevance for the GOP. It didn't play out that way. Today, Senators Conrad (D-ND) and Lieberman (I-CT) announced they were not running again. Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison is also calling it quits. While the "wisdom" will say this means the Senate has gone "red," remember, it's really early. Also, remember that the Democrats are likely to hold Connecticut, and the GOP the same in Texas. So basically, let's all resist knee-jerk reactions.

Well, that's all for now. As I said, we're signing on here.