Normal Americans are paying about as much attention to the 2012 elections as they are the next census.  And who can blame them? 17 months is, well, 17 months away. There are two full summers ahead to plan for with vacation getaways, hitting the beach, fishing, and tending to their own lives. 

For the vast majority of normal Americans, little if anything political enters their own lives.  A man from the government does not gently wake us up in the morning, make our coffee, take out the trash, nor drive us to work.  Government does not help us with our daily work and there is no government program that makes anyone's day go faster or the inbox go lower.  Government does not grocery shop for us and it does not walk our dogs.  It does not cook our dinners, clean out our garages, do the laundry, or shut off the lights at the end of the day.  The government has no real bearing on most American's daily lives.  And that is the blessing of liberty.

But we, the proud political hobbyists, feel the hot breath of the next election breathing down our necks, and it is a source of ceaseless wonderment.  Do you remember the last time you worried more about the chinch bugs in your lawn than what some wind blown talking airhead thought about this or that politician's take on this or that issue? (Me neither, brothers & sisters! Pass the pancakes & syrup!)  But then again, some people seem to enjoy collecting stamps. To each his own.

Seventeen  months is a long time to think about an election.  The latest political "buzz" has been the Democrats complaining about the "weak field" of Republican candidates running for President, or not.  Opinion polls ask people if they are satisfied with the Republican field of candidates.  Are people energized by the field, do they want candidate x, y, or z to get in or get out?  With all this talk about the Republican bench I got to thinking about the Democrat backbenchers.

Say, for instance, (hypothetically speaking, of course,) that Democrats came to their senses for once.  They reasonably and thoughtfully took the measure of Obama's record and found him stinking on ice.  A reasonable Democrat would take a deep breath and calmly, but swiftly, break into a logic induced shrieking panic.   Now picture yourself a Democrat kingmaker.  Who could you possibly pick?  A conservative "blue dog" Democrat?  There must be an EPA edict about running a nearly extinct species for President.  That person would have to debate Obama and point out that socialism is a repeatedly failed and criminally irresponsible social experiment.  Would Hillary or Biden make any sense to anyone other than Dennis Kucinich supporters?  Democrat young guns like Anthony Wein....er, make that Debbie Wasserpoint Shultz?  Governor Jennifer Granholm won't do; she is Canadian-born and has the birth certificate to prove it,  and she can't very well put the entire state of Michigan in her trunk, drive it out to the woods, and dig a big hole to hide her crime.

If the Democrats tried to replace Obama with a white guy, wouldn't that be racist?  Any opposition of Obama's policies is rooted in racism we've all been repeatedly told.  Democrats pointing fingers at the "weak" Republican field is nothing more than whistling past the graveyard.  You want a weak field? Start with the weakling Obama administration and work your way down.  Can you imagine if your life depended on finding a qualified Democrat candidate to run for President?  Perish the thought!  Better to worry about the cinch bugs.