Interesting. I stayed last night in the E-bay at the Landeman's house of Sociology -- three grads; one apartment; more bookshelves than you can shake a stick at -- and this morning while we're getting coffee he asks me what's been going on in politics.

And so I summarize:

• Polling suggests that the Democrats may take a slim majority in the House and/or (slimmer possibility) the Senate this fall, making Bush a lame duck, which would be good in and of itself.
• However, they're not going to really be able to do anything, so the energy crunch and housing-market slump (pretty much unavoidable) may get blamed on them.
• On the other hand: free health care may be in the offing.
• Today's primary in Connecticut should be interesting.

We didn't get into the international stuff, which doesn't really look too good either. Neo-conservatism seems broken, but I don't count out their ability to shoehorn us deeper into a middle-eastern war when we should be disengaging from the region militarily. We won't get a refferendum on new foreign policy vision until '08 anyway, but I'm pessimistic about how much of a check a Democratic House will put on Bush. Theoretically they can just cut off the money, but I don't think they want to play that kind of hardball. Don't seem to really care enough. Alternate visions are also sadly lacking in the leadership caste.