Each primary election cycle we are entertained by watching results come in from various states to see how "our guy" did. It has occurred to me in past elections, most past elections, that while we are all Americans, and basically all want the same things from our government, we seem to see things a lot differently.

How can it be that in a day when over twenty states held their primaries, and all of the members of those states heard and saw the same things from the candidates, that the results can vary so much from state to state? It happenned on "Super Tuesday", but it also happened on days when elections were held days apart. For example, Mike Huckabee won West Virginia and John McCain, days later, won Virginia, but was behind in the voting until northern Virginia results came in, so even within a given state voters are not of the same mind.

What do voters in Iowa see that causes them to choose Mike Huckabee and then only short weeks later neighboting Missouri choose John McCain who didn't finish in the top three in Iowa? Are voters so lazy that they allow the media to make up their minds for them who is going to be the leaders of their respective parties? Yes the same thing is happening in the Democrat party as well, although with fewer choices for the voters. While the Republicans showed three lead changes in their race, either Clinton or Obama have locked up first place in all of the Democrat races. Republicans watched the lead change from Iowa with Huckabee to New Hampshire voting mostly for McCain and then Wyoming and Michigan opting for Romney who went on to capture a seemingly insurmountable lead with Huckabee closest to him until Florida's primary where McCain took the lead and forced Romney to drop out, leaving only McCain, Huckabee and Ron Paul who had yet to finish above second place in any of the primaries or caucuses.

Not only are we as a people divided between states, but we are also divided within the same states and even in the same towns or cities, and probably within the same neighborhoods. I guess as long as there are more than two or three people in the same room there will be differences on how each candidate is viewed. I don't suppose we will ever again see a 49 state victory as we had when Ronald Reagan won re-election in 1984, and if some get their way, we may not see winning of individual states deciding the election, as there is now a big push for getting rid of the electoral college in favor of a straight popular vote, which would make the votes in fly-over country irrelevent. California, Texas, New York, Florida, and one or two other more heavily populated states would decide who our president would be. We could have been just finishing up eight years of Al Gore.