This is an election year and the primaries and political caucuses are occupying much media and internet blog attention. This poll shows that Hilary Clinton is leading Obama in straw polls in a particular state; the next poll shows the effects of Ted Kennedy supporting Obama..........

For most people of voting age, straw polls, primaries, and political caucuses are events to which they pay little attention. Does this mean that you or I, if we are in the noninvolved group, trust the presidential election process, or don't care enough about it to be concerned ? Are we really apathetic?

Why ? One answer may be that any candidate for President is making promises that we know they cannot keep, is taking positions on particular issues that cannot be resolved in a simple, campaign promise way, and in according to some campaign speeches is running for the role of God, instead of the US Presidency.

In our federal republic, political decisions are spread among many spheres of influence, including town governments, state legislatures, houses of Congress, bureaucracies at many levels; in short no one person or small group of persons is in charge of most significant political changes.

So a presidential election campaign is very much like a public relations or advertising effort. Try to create enthusiasm, spin every political story so that your candidate looks better than an opponent, and plant gossip to make your opposition look worse. And try to make the electorate believe that you are the right agent for change.

Maybe we are both trusting and apathetic. Trusting that eventually the political process will offer choices that we consider real and worth making, apathetic that giving our attention to each campaign detail is a waste of our time.