The race for the Republican and Democratic nominations for President have entered a surreal stage with Michigan the latest to move its primary contest to the head of the line.

Not even Sartre could write a play so outrageously divorced from reality.

The Wolverine state originally scheduled its primary for February 9. But with Arizona becoming the 21st state to place their primary on the Febuary 5 "Super Duper Tuesday," Michigan realized that the nominee would be all but crowned by the time their primary rolled around. More than half the delegates will be chosen on mega primary day and this has caused a scramble among states to shuffle their primary dates to achieve maximum impact on the process.

Florida has already proposed moving its primary to January 29th. This has caused South Carolina's "First in the South" primary to be moved up to January 19th. And that has in turn, caused New Hampshire to move its primary back to January 14th - the date Iowa was originally scheduled to hold its first in the nationa caucuses. But the Hawkeyes have a state law that says they must hold their caucuses at least 8 days prior to any other state holding a primary.

And if you've followed all of this without getting a splitting headache, you can call yourself a true political junkie.

The point is simple; the parties are going to have to put their foot down or we'll be eating Christmas dinner and then hurrying out to vote for our presidential choice. The whole process has degenerated into madness. And there are still some states that may shuffle the deck even more.

The Democratic party rules committee is meeting this weekend to decide whether they should punish Florida, whose move to 1/29 started this whole mess, by taking away some, most, or all of their delegates to the convention. A strong stand by the national parties would be welcome. After all, the process is complicated enough already. 

No matter what happens, what with the February 5th mega primary day almost certainly deciding the nominees for both parties, we have nearly 9 months of sniping back and forth by the two candidates before finally, on November 4, 2008, we get to choose our next president.

Democracy is the worst form of government ever invented - except for all the others.