Dan Dodd’s Congressional brochure reads "Tough, Smart Leadership for a Strong America". He also suggests that the important issues that Congress should be spending it’s time on include "The Iraq War, hurricane disaster relief, global warming, energy innovation and oil independence, national security and balancing the budget". Yet he barely touched on any of these issues at the latest political fad, the house party- an event for the politically inclined.

You might have guessed that I attended such an event; you would be correct. This weekend was not all about flipping my hair and fluttering my lashes at the latest boy toy, I like totally tried to be deep, cuz ya know, politics are like totally important!

In the latest political coup, Dan Dodd is trying to kick Republican incumbent, Sam Johnson, to the curb. Unfortunately, he’s got about as much chance of overthrowing a Republican in the Bible Belt as Mel Gibson does of converting to Judaism.

Though, it may appear that I’m bashing a liberal candidacy I just have to say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Dodd is certainly intelligent and polished in the art of gladhanding, but he has about as strong of a resume for a Congressional stint as Ben Affleck. The majority of his speech was filled with one-liners about pushing Johnson out of the race because "he would have to stand upon his record." Ok, so? In a town full of conservatives a Congressman who votes 98% of the time with Bush is considered a good thing. Unless he killed an intern in a seedy hotel room while voting to increase taxes and allow gay marriage In the conservative minds of N. TX are unlikely to sway their votes.

Dodd also managed to sprinkle in some short sound bites about the latest Democratic buzzword, global warming. I don’t doubt the implications of the impending climate change, brought on by our dependence on oil and fossil fuels, but I believe there is very little we can do about it in our lifetimes. Buy a fuel-efficient car and use energy saving light bulbs if you’re feeling guilty about slowly killing our planet!

Though I’m all for finding long term solutions to major ecological problems we have to focus on what HIV/AIDS or other global issues will do to the human population if not controlled. Can we handle losing the AIDS pandemic that is decimating sub-Saharan African (20 million victims and counting)? Rather than spending $50 billion dollars a year to convince industries to "go green!" I think our tax dollars would be better-spent fixing problems (HIV/AIDS, malaria, poverty) that have foreseeable solutions.

Thus I am going to step off my soapbox and head to the voting polls in November to vote for my candidate, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and hope that we can count on a politician in any political office to deliver more than one-liners on major issues. I know, I know, I’ll keep dreaming…