Inappropriate Content: The New England Journal of Giant Fibreglass Foodstuffs

So: I work in the government. I work in a department with a d that is part of an operations area that is part of a service that is part of a Department with a D. I'm the secretary with an s for the director of the department with a d, as opposed to the director of the Department with a D, who is a Secretary with an S. (Go ahead and read that sentence again. I promise it makes sense.)

The old director retired a couple months ago, leaving behind a few awards, a legacy of 32 years of civil service, and a couple of magazine subscriptions. One of those magazines is National Journal, which bills itself as 'The Weekly on Politics and Government.' It's not as good as The New Republic, of course, but then again, what is? Considering what I pay for it--nothing--it's the best value in the District.

One of the more interesting features is called the "Political Insider's Poll." Of course all polls, whether of insiders, outsiders, or supply-siders, have a certain fascinating yet tenuous connection to reality. Still, the last two issues of this poll have given us some interesting feedback on the 2006 congressional dog and pony show. I mean, election.

Last week 76 senators and congress-critters were asked who will be the house speaker in January 2007. (A coveted position because the speaker is third in line to be president, although the only House Speaker in history to go all the way was the brief "acting-presidency" of John Goodman in the fifth season of The West Wing. Speaking of John Goodman...Takei?)

Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming bi-partisan majority of legislators believe that, if the GOP maintains control of the House, Dennis Hastert will extend his term as House Speaker. After all, Denny is one of the few prominent Republicans on the hill who is not prominent because of an association with Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay, which is all it takes to be the GOP equivalent of a big ol' teddy bear. His blog is a down-home aw, shucks-y blog.

Also unsurprisingly, the Republicans think they'll keep control of the house; the Democrats think they'll make a sweep. Of course, a good third on either side of the aisle gave responses like these:

"Democrats will pick up a few seats, but no surge."
"Republicans will suffer significant losses (eight to 12 seats) [but] retain the majority."
"Left with a razor-thin majority, Hastert."

National Journal prints those quotes without attribution; it does say that the first two are Republicans and the third a Democrat. But while we can see what our legislators think will happen in 2006, only one of them dares to speculate why:

The 2006 election will be a referendum on President Bush. If you like the way things are going—runaway budget deficit [and so on]—vote Republican...

"Referendum on the President" is a phrase that popped up again and again in this week's poll, which was of political 'insiders' such as Mary Matalin and Gary Bauer for the GOP and Terry McAuliffe and John Podesta for the Dems. Respondents were asked to name the top three issues of the 2006 elections. Democrats put Bush's performance as a solid first place while the GOP left the referendum theory in a distant fourth.

One interesting side note is that the perennial Democratic crutch issue, health care, came in sixth on the Democrats list and eighth on the GOP side. I hope that doesn't change. Because, yes, our national lack of good health care is one of the biggest problems in America--but whenever the Democrats come back to it, it sounds like we're harping, like we're out of 'real issues,' in short, it sounds desperate.

I've mentioned before a problem with blogging at work: my posts tend to lose discipline, and degenerate into a string of disconnected non-sequiters. This is one reason I enjoy blogs that just go ahead with a whole bunch of short posts each day, such as The Corner or OxBlog. But another problem is that somehow, every long post I try to do at work seems to devolve, sooner or later, in to some pointless navel-gazing about blogging. Which is why I'm going to stop writing now, before I turn into a caricature of myself, which would be an accomplishment for someone who doesn't yet have any caricature, or, arguably, any character. Here's a picture of a giant egg in Australia.

Is this giant fibreglass egg a terrorist fibreglass egg?