I swore after the last time that I wasn’t going to do it again. And it was easy, too. After a 25/8 (yeah, somehow it even overtook the time space continuum) diet of pundits and plaudits, polls and pans, giggles and gaffes, and insider news that turned out to be flawed, I was done. I gave up my steady diet of political horseracing, the press reporting on itself, and the bubble of Washington, D.C., where you don’t have any idea of how the race is shaping up because nobody buys TV or radio time and you don’t get even a black and white postcard in the mail. (D.C. is not a politically competitive market–or even important for that matter.)

But over the past few days I was dragged crying into the Edwards’ very sad, personal backstory to his political aspirations, shook my head at the Huckabee –“sure this ad is too mean, you can see for yourself”–hucksterism, was surprised by both the George Will and the David Brooks assessment of the Obama “experience” factor, cringed a bit watching Hillary Clinton sharing a wink and a nod as well as her infamous laugh with former Bill Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos, and was not surprised with reports of McCain’s reticence to make a bigger deal of his brave service.

So, I think that I will have to work on moderating my intake. And hope that there will be some big doldrums between February 5th and the Conventions (R, D). At least I hope. Oh, and Happy New Year!