Actually I’ve been registered for years, but since we moved to Baltimore a year ago I hadn’t registered locally. Now, with the midterm elections nearing, I’m looking forward to casting my vote.

My goal this November is to allow the Republican congressional leadership a much needed breather. It’s time for them to go home. Surely they must be tired, after so many years of running the show — the breathtaking deficit they’ve run up (zooming the national debt from $5.6 trillion in 2000 to $8.5 trillion today) and the tragic war they’ve never questioned (in which more Americans have died over there than died on 9/11).

Also exhausting must’ve been their attack on the middle class. In February, the Republican-controlled Senate cut $12.7 billion from the college aid program. Think about: They rang up $3 trillion in new debt, but they decided we couldn’t give working class families a hand in sending their kids to school.

And let’s not even talk about that Foley ugliness. That stuff doesn’t smell good.

Yes, those fine public servants must be plain tuckered out.

But the best reason to send the Republicans home – and give the Democrats a chance at power – is to provide a counterpoint to George W. B**h. We really, really, really need a counterpoint to Mr. B**h.

(I’m using asterisks in place of the letters because his name is very much a four-letter word — a true profanity. This is a family Web site, and I’ll allow no foul language.)

I can’t wait for November!