I prefer to leave the politics to my co-worker and much-more-prolific blogger Tony Phyrillas, but the view of the presidential primaries this year is too exciting to keep me on the sidelines.
Last night's primary victory for Barack Obama in Wisconsin was his ninth win in a row in what was supposed to be the Year of Hillary. Obama and Hillary Clinton are in a horse race toward the finish line of the Democratic primary. On the Republican side, even though John McCain has pretty much wrapped up the race, he's not boring.
Who would have thought as recently as a year or so ago that the nation would have real choices in 2008 -- a woman who is a political veteran, an Hawaiian-born African-American newcomer, and a wizened Vietnam POW with a reputation for flippant one-liners.
Take the nation's polarization four years ago, split severely into two camps along party lines, and put it on high speed in a blender and you'll get a taste of what the coming months will bring. People are not just looking at Democrats and Republicans this year; they are looking at real choices in style, experience, gender, race and ideology.
Which brings me to the year of my inbox.
Although it hasn't begun in earnest yet, I know that I will be inundated with email from throughout the country with form letters supporting one candidate or another. The onslaught will come after the conventions because the mailing lists to editors come out of central party headquarters. No point in wasting Republican or Democratic time and money until they have one person to support.
As November comes closer, I will get as many as 150-200 emails a day, the majority of them the same letter, sent from people throughout the country.
Occasionally, one of them is from a local person, and I have to be careful not to let it slip in as a letter to the editor. (Form letters are forbidden, according to our policy.)
The email proliferation in support of John Kerry or George Bush four years ago was annoying. At least this year, the discourse may prove interesting.
These are exciting times for our country, in my opinion, because the field of candidates we're looking at represent a new direction. The direction will be different depending on the candidate, but all currently in the running bring newness to the race for the White House.
I like it.