The bad economy is all the Democrats have going for them right now. All their other issues are massive spending programs which don't sound all that good when we are looking at deficits, tax increases or no tax increases. When Greenspan stood up and said "don't increase taxes, cut spending," the Democrats could have killed him with their bare hands.

The ghastly truth--at least from a politician's perspective--is that Washington actually has very little to do with the health of the economy, except maybe negatively. The only real thing that Washington can do to improve the economy is stay as far away from it as possible. Needless to say, to politicos who are interested in power, this is not what they want us to think, and both Democrats and Republicans do their damnedest to impress on us that without their Critical Economic Policies, we are all certainly doomed. So far, they have managed to keep this illusion up, with the added pleasant side effect--from a politician's point of view--that most Americans are trained like Pavlov's dogs to turn to Washington when any problem whatsoever turns up.

Once we start getting the idea that the cosmos does not revolve around the District of Columbia, who knows what other dangerous ideas we might get?

Remember, in Washington power is the top priority. Some people think it's about money, but there isn't one politician in Washington that could not be getting richer someplace else.

When you cut the rhetoric and crap away, every policy, every law, every platform, has as its sole goal the gaining and keeping of political power. Keeping this in mind helps you keep things in focus.