Bored In Arlington

It's an election year here in Virginia. In Arlington, too. But there's no suspense in Arlington. None at all. Democrats will win every race, by a wide margin. Kind of like the old days of the single party South.

Now don't get us wrong. We're happy that Democrats will win. Still, it's a bit boring. We have no opportunity to pick up any seats in the legislature here. For any action, we have to look to our west and south, in other parts of Northern Virginia, where there are some interesting--and critical races--particularly if the Democrats in Virginia are to re-take at least one chamber.

Of course, everyone is still going through the motions here. We get many an invite to fundraisers for candidates who will win by margins of 65-35 percent. We get the usual phone calls--indeed, we can no longer answer our home phone for fear of what is on the other end of the line.

We did get an amusing call the other day: it was from the Fred Thompson campaign. We toyed with the lady for awhile, but then she figured out that she had hit a blue household, and politely said she'd remove us from their calling list.

The problem with state legislative elections is that there is no polling to rely--or mis-rely--upon, or to spice up the race with speculation. The districts are simply too small for effective polling. So we have to rely on educated guesses as to which races will be competitive--and might merit opening up the ol' checkbook.

With five weeks to go, it's still too early to make any predictions. But we're getting close. Let's hope there's some fun in it all at the end!