Riding into the office the other day I was flipping the radio dial to the several area AM radio stations for something to listen to.

What I heard made me think we’re in for a long New Year when it comes to politics.

On one station was a liberal talk show host whose callers were congratulating him on his views – think they were talking about Iraq and how President Bush had saddled the current administration with a bad, bad situation.

On the conservative side the callers were fervently agreeing with the host and his right of center views on some other topic.

I turned the radio off. I wasn’t going to learn anything new.

It just served to confirm my belief that the nation is more polarized than ever before and that nothing, I mean nothing, that happens between now and next November in Washington D.C. will be motivated by anything other than gaining or retaining power.

You can spare yourself the effort of trying to wade through all the rhetoric by remembering that one thing. They (our political friends on either side) may mean what they say but they are not trying to solve problems. First and foremost they are trying to get (or keep) their hands on the reins of government at the federal level.

There will be no genuine attempts to settle any problem until the question of who will be in charge is solved by the next national election.

Here in Goochland people have spoken

But here in Goochland the question of who is in charge has been answered.

It should prove fascinating to see what the consequences of a local election can be as, starting next week, two new boards, radically different in composition from their predecessors, hold their first meetings and begin to grapple with the same problems that vexed their forerunners.

And so we made the election our number one story of the year and trust most of our readers will agree. Further on down the list things could have been shifted about. For instance there seemed to be little interest in the several stories, at least as expressed in comments on our Web site, on the Kwamane Davis case, just settled in Goochland Circuit Court.

At any rate, should readers take exception to our story list or think something has been left out, we hope they will tell us about it. We want to know what you think about the stories of the year, So don’t smolder in silence –if you disagree just let us have it with a rip-snorting letter to the editor.

Unlike the talk show hosts mentioned above, we don’t expect everyone to agree with us.