The Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are approaching swiftly, which kick off the 2008 Presidential race in a major way.  But so far, I just can't get any real enthusiasm going for the race.

Why?  Because so far, it's been boring as hell beyond a few moments of enjoyable stupidity. 

Lets look at the Democrats first...

You've got Clinton 2.0, The Oprah Candidate, John "I'll save the little guy" Edwards, and then a collection of other candidates that don't appear to stand much of a chance at this late stage.

Aside from a few differences in personality, so far all three seem to make their defining characteristic that they're Not Bush.  Which didn't work in 2000 or 2004.  All three have some plan for expanded government health care, all three are vague on what that plan is.  All three say they represent change.  None of them have actually done anything yet to say why they're the BEST candidate or what they specifically plan to do about anything.

Aside from "whatever Bush did, I'll do the opposite!"

Now, on to the Republicans

Mr. 911, Mike "Chuck Norris Endorsed" Huckabee, Romney and John "Lets Try Again" McCain.  This is a more diverse group of attitudes and ideas, but they're not exactly interesting yet.

Giuliani keeps hammering on how he was mayor of NYC on 9/11.  Woo.  Great.  Um, what else are you about?  He seems to be all over the place on views.  Then there's Huckabee who came up from behind recently.  Aside from his Chuck Norris endorsement, he seems to fall pretty solidly to the right on most issues.  Same for Romney and McCain.

In fact, the only really interesting candidate from the Republicans is one who doesn't have a chance; Ron Paul.  The often-hilarious member of Congress from Texas.  He's a strong libertarian and constitutionalist and makes promises often to shut down practically 90% of the government since it's beyond the intended scope set forth by our founding fathers.  If you've ever seen an interview with Ron Paul, just search YouTube, it'll be worth your time.

So, on the left we've got a bunch of boring candidates that don't stand out much from one another.  On the right we have a more diverse group that isn't really saying much interesting on what they would actually DO if elected, and with the primaries kicking off very soon, I bet the signal to noise ratio is going to get pretty bad.

At what point will any of these candidates actually sit down and tell me what they are going to DO?

Wake me up when that happens, this one looks to be a real snoozer for a while yet.