By Randy Evans – In 2006, American voters sent a very clear message to Washington, D.C. Americans wanted change – change from a pattern of corruption in the House of Representatives; change from failed strategies in Iraq; change from political bickering that prevented solutions from becoming reality; and change from the cultural drift from the core values that made America great.

Change is what Americans wanted in 2006; and change is what they got.

In the Congress, control changed from the Republicans to the Democrats in 2006 in both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Now admittedly, since that change, things have not gone so well. The economy has struggled and even stumbled with staggering stock market losses that have undermined the confidence of even the staunchest optimist.

Gasoline prices continue to climb at an alarming rate and have risen from $2.50 per gallon when Democrats took control of the Congress to now over $4.00 per gallon. Solutions coming out of the Congress so far have been limited to more taxes or less consumption. Neither holds any meaningful hope for long term solutions to solve America’s growing energy crisis.

Meanwhile, unemployment continues to edge upward as more and more Americans face the prospect of tough economic times ahead. For many others, businesses have imposed new cost-cutting measures that limit new hiring, threaten overtime and reduce benefits.

With heavy pressure from rapidly rising energy costs, inflation has started to rear its ugly head, and threatens to prolong the economic slowdown for many months to come. It is really not a very pretty picture.

Not all of the change coming out of the 2006 election has been bad. With a big assist from General Petraeus, America’s military forces, through the sacrifice and commitment of its brave men and women, have turned the war around in Iraq.
The surge has by all accounts proven successful. Deaths are down; violence is down; and overall stability in the country is up. This has enabled the United States military to stick by its measured draw-down of troops from Iraq.

Yet, Afghanistan continues to be a real challenge. Tyrannies and terrorists never go easily into the night. As a result, the Taliban has escalated its violence in hopes to prompt an Iraq-like “cut and run” political response on the American political scene as the 2008 Presidential elections approach. President Bush will have no part of it and has promised increased forces in Afghanistan to secure the progress that America’s soldiers have already delivered.

Then, there has been the United States Supreme Court. After years of creating gray, and then wallowing in the murky middle, the Court has issued a series of rulings that are sweeping in effect. So far, the Court has adopted the mantra – “often in error, never in doubt.”

In definitive terms, the Court has granted enemy combatants held by the United States military the Constitutional right to challenge in a United States court the basis upon which they are held by the military. The Court has held that child rapists, regardless of how heinous their crime, can never be executed unless they killed or intended to kill their victim. This has been a change of a different kind.

Amidst all of this “change” comes the 2008 Presidential election which has been branded the “change election.” With the stark changes, some good, some not, that have occurred in the last eighteen months, Americans are starting to focus on a different kind of question: what kind of change?

Control of the Congress, the White House, and even the Supreme Court, will be at play in 2008.

All four hundred and thirty five House of Representatives will be elected.

Thirty-five United States Senators will be elected.

The next President of the United States will be elected.

And with two Supreme Court Justices approaching retirement, control of the current Supreme Court with four liberals, four conservatives, and a single swing vote will be at play. As a result, the next President will likely decide the make-up of the Court for the next twenty years.

Believe it or not, when the founding fathers gathered two hundred and thirty two years ago, this is exactly what they contemplated. No king or monarchy would rule for an entire generation. Control of government would not be passed down by the randomness of inheritance or a battle of bullets. Instead, the power of the government would rest in the people. After all, that is what the Declaration of Independence is really all about.

The ability to choose. America’s future is not predestined or predetermined. Instead, as an independent and free country, each American will have the power to directly participate in a process that determines who will lead the United States. Is this a great country or what?