[RFPCME]

RC14 and jmonkey: I'm forever the optimist, but I'm sure you're both right that Rep. Cannon will win the primary and the general election. I would guess, however, it may be closer than before. There is "change blowin' in the wind."

Back on topic...even with a likely highly Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, I think the masses will not tolerate high fuel prices, along with high food and almost high everything else prices because of $125 a barrel-plus oil prices. My guess is that even the environmental lobby cannot stop a comprehensive energy policy, which includes new funding and incentives for mass transit, incentives for alternative energy production (although I'm not a big fan of this approach, it will be the olive branch offered the environmentalists), incentives for conservation, and a general rethinking of how this Nation uses and produces energy, which should bode well for oil shale production.

So maybe we needed this mess to drive us to what needs to be done. It would be nice to see something like the coming-together that happened after 9-11 to tackle a threat to our country, our culture, our lives that is much larger than the one Al Qaeda ever presented. But I am forever the optimist.