all the great state roads

+ tomorrow i'll probably finish reading former sen. tom daschle's (D-SD) memoir of the eventful 2000-2002 years in the US senate. i love personal memoirs of time spent in politics, esp. those written by people farther from the action. daschle was obviously notable, serving as the senate's majority leader from '01-'02, but being in the senate means that he has far more to say about the daily grind of politics than, say, a president would. one of my favourite political books is the self-published a professor in parliament, by herb grubel, the one term(1993-1997) reform MP for capilano-howe sound. there's no rhetoric, posturing, or ego - just an account of the daily grind as as accidental MP.

in 2004, daschle lost his senate seat to john thune, an undistinguished republican who has been little but a white house puppet since his election. thune had narrowly lost to tim johnson in the 2002 senate race, by a mere 500+ votes, largely due to daschle's forceful campaign on behalf of his colleague. thune's win was then seen as both personal vindication and a national symbol for republicans. reading the commentary comeing out of that 2004 result, the assumption was that democrats would be on the defensive in 2006, fighting to hold on to west virginia, minnesota, new mexico, and north dakota. ultimately, republicans only put up a fight in minnesota and still lost there by 20 points. the only trouble spots pegged for the republicans in 2004 were rhode island and maybe pennsylvania. ohio, missouri, virginia, and montana weren't even on the map, and wins in all of those gave the democrats the senate. in 2004, it was supposedly all over for the democrats. red states were red states, and nothing could ever change that. cultural differences. unavoidable demographic shifts. just call the rest of history done. well, no. wrong. i can't foresee a scenario right now that sees a republican wining the white house next year.

the 2008 presidential election will feature the first open race since 1968, in which neither party will nominate a sitting president or sitting vice president. 1968 is iffy too, because nixon had been eisenhower's VP from 1952-1960.

+ can i do my job? i'm good at a lot of it, but i feel as though i'm blowing some key stuff lately. the important thing is to just not sweat it.

+ this december i'll be done with school. next april i'll be done with SFU, at least in this capacity.