U.S. Elections - Who Has the Uphill Battle?

There has been some blog fodder tossed around about which party is going to come out on top in the next election cycle. Facts remain facts, Republicans were elected with the hopes of restoring some fiscal sanity during the Clinton years, and have failed miserably. They have not been a party of their word, and have only proven that party control of multiple branches of the government increases pork spending exponentially.

Regardless of this fact, I'm unable to predict exactly which party will end up benefiting from the next round of elections, but what I am fairly certain of is low voter turnout.

Recent elections have just been a choice between the two lowest-common denominators, and public interest is beginning to wane. From my vantage point, quite honestly, there aren't even a handful of politicians out there right now that get me remotely interested, let alone excited, as they all seem to be a bunch of lazy fat-cats married more to being in power than to "public service". Now, that's just my seemingly hostile opinion, and does not necessarily extend to voters in general, however I'm a pretty moderate guy that wants to win the war, and if you've lost me, who else have you lost?

The Republicans are spending us into the ground even after 20 years of their complaints about Democratic maleficence. It was just a switch of "pet projects."

But the Democrats are utterly insane. They are too reactionary, politically opportunistic and totally incapable of seeing past their hunger for power, which causes them to act and sound like spineless and perfidious dorks when it comes to winning the War. Would you trust these guys with National Security at any level?

Most of he rhetoric I have been hearing from Republican supporters is, "Yeah, well our guys haven't exactly been great, but look at the idiots on the other side." Is this really what it has come down to? Do we expect so little of our elected officials that we are satisfied to vote for the least incompetent one?

I know this may be a bit cynical, but in general politics is one of those areas that requires so much from an individual, yet offers so little in return. It doesn't completely shock me that we have so little to choose from in our politicians, Republican or Democrat, and a third party won't solve the fundamental nature of this problem either. However, American history has been full of quality men and women who have served their country with honor, so I'm unconvinced that this epidemic is something we have to tolerate in the long-run.

Anyway, I think our current political situation translates into lower turnout overall.

So, here we go again -- hold your nose and pull the lever...