I almost apologize for doing two political related posts in a row...almost. I was prompted to look back at some old messages between myself and a dear friend. One I met on VF, actually. These messages were sent via FB. We met in early 2012; she's not from the US, but was keenly aware of / interested in the presidential race here. Here's a clip from it. And it was rather foretelling - indicative of what was to come for me. Pardon the all lowercase writing...that apparently was my style at the time, lol. "well, the presidential campaign is almost certainly going to be between dumb and dumber...i mean, between obama and romney...i'll leave it up to your interpretation as to which one is 'dumb', and which one is 'dumber' 😃 the republican national convention is this week. it was supposed to start today, but was delayed by a hurricane (it's being held in tampa, florida). so, it shall start tomorrow, and continue for 3 days...with the expected outcome being that mitt romney will be the nominee, and thus, challenger against obama in the general election in november. at this point, i am so disillusioned...almost not caring who wins, because i feel we all lose, no matter the outcome. i've developed some very strong, cynical opinions of my country as of late...thusly become more and more ashamed of what it's become. i've basically decided to try to focus on state-level and local politics, as that is easier to have an impact upon." And holy shite, have I had an impact on state level politics ;D The conversation was in the context of Ron Paul, where it was just before I had met him. To put it into context: the "establishment" Republicans at the national level essentially did to Ron Paul that year what the "establishment" Dems did to Bernie Sanders in 2016.