It appears the new year is going to be marked by two long, drawn-out events from which at times it will seem we can get no relief.
One of them we'll be able to suffer through because we understand that much of the nation _ and the world _ will be better off when it is over. The other, which began Thursday in Iowa, will test our patience and sensibility. We can only hope the world will become a better place when it's concluded.
The Bush presidency, with its assaults on other countries and the Constitution of our own, has been a dangerous and sad chapter in American history. With 380 days remaining, we have to do what we can, which isn't much, to keep Bush from doing any more damage.
Leave it to the entrepreneurs to try to make a buck on the president leaving office. I now have my official ``His Days are Numbered George W. Bush Countdown Calendar." Apparently such items, along with ``The Out of Office Countdown" calendar, have become hot sellers.
The humor may be popular, but the legacy is anything but funny. The wars, torture, lies and climate inaction are enough to warrant impeachment _ except that with Washington lawmakers unable to agree on anything, it'd be too little, too late.
But Bush isn't that unusual; it's just a matter of degree. When was the last time a president wasn't ripe for a ``countdown" as the nation began the process of replacing him? Eisenhower, maybe, who was a war hero, not a politician.
A recent nationwide poll by AP-Yahoo found that nearly three times more people believe the country is on the wrong track than on the right track. It's that feeling that separates Bush from his predecessors.
Oh, we'll get through the next year, though without any progress on issues that people care about. You know, health care, the cost of living, the environment, corruption.
But look at the process we've created to choose someone else to confront those issues. The election is not held until November and many of the candidates have been campaigning for six months and more.
We have Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire voting, and then more states getting into the mix, all paying homage to a two-party system that attracts only 70 percent of registered voters. For all qualified voters, the turnout rate is about 60 percent.
After going through the primaries for several grueling months and spending millions of dollars to get their messages out, it is no surprise that candidates can't quite live up to our expectations.
They appear frayed and vulnerable, the victims of pollsters and media talkers who seem to gloat in their ability to send one candidate rising above another for no apparent reason except the momentum generated by the media in the first place.
I suspect we need a more humane system, and one that would attract more voters. Just as many other countries practice, why not put all the candidates on a national ballot and narrow the field to the top two or the top four in each party.
We might be able to shorten the length of the campaigning and at the same time generate more voter interest.
But, of course, that's not going to happen because our Constitution has established that an Electoral College decides who is president, not the voters _ as Al Gore found out seven years ago.
As we enter this new year and try to look beyond George Bush, we see in polls that just as most people are fed up with the nation's leadership, they at the same time say they are happy with "life in general," whatever that might mean at the time.
So, if your life's going OK, how do you look at the dozen or more candidates beating the bushes for a chance to run for president?
You see a minister, a first lady, a black senator, a Mormon, a Hispanic, a Carolina liberal and a former federal prosecutor. There's a former POW, a libertarian, an antiwar congressman and a senator from Delaware (not the county).
You know oil has hit $100 a barrel, the economy is headed into recession, that the housing and mortgage crises are getting worse, and that the war could go on forever if the wrong person is elected.
How can you be so tickled with ``life in general?'' Perhaps because this area does tend to miss the extreme ups and downs. The good times are never quite so good around here and the bummers are not as bad as they are nationally.
But we've been learning the last seven years just how much difference a president can make. I don't think we'll be hearing anything about tweedledee and tweedledum this time around.
Let's start the countdown.
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Cary Brunswick, The Daily Star's managing editor, can be reached at 441-7217 or cary@thedailystar.com.
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