Our incumbent Democrat governor is a shyster and his Republican opponent is a crazy lady. So I will be voting for the Green Party candidate as my way of saying, "none of the above."

On national races, I would be willing to vote a straight Republican ticket if even the smallest ray of hope peeks through the dark clouds in Iraq. This seems unlikely.

Even as American military and Iraqi civilian casualties creep upward and the country spins into anarchy, the American generals announce plans to maintain our present troop levels in Iraq until the year 2010.

(At the same time, the head of British armed forces, General Richard Donnett, says the presence of U.S. and British forces is making the situation worse.)

The president has grown tiresome braying that America must stay the course in Iraq. He claims to offer a coherent policy and charges the Democrats with an incoherent policy.

I will take my chances with an incoherent, inconsistent, disorganized Democrat policy on Iraq if the alternative is the bull-headed, road rage of the current Republican administration.

Even simple folks know when it is time to change lanes to avoid disaster.

This election is a warm-up for the 2008 presidential election. My favorite American Mullah, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, said that if Sen. Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, her approval ratings would be lower than Lucifer's. That is a debatable point.

More certain is that fact that if Satan did get the Republican nomination for [resident, direct-mail, TV hucksters like Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson would find a few kind words to say about the Prince of Darkness.

They may feel some embarrassment about new revelations coming out this week. A White House insider and long time friend of the religious right, David Kuo, has written a book, "Tempting Faith," to be released this week. He says the leaders of the religious right were very happy to have their picture taken with the president and to be given trinkets such as cuff links.

But after they left, Republican strategist Karl Rove and others called them "nuts" and "goofy."

Perhaps the wheels are starting to fall off the Republican wagon. At one time their combination of supporting big business and social conservatism at home and jingoistic bullying abroad seemed like an unbeatable political juggernaut.

But this is slowly being exposed as domestic corporate greed and corruption with petty venality and hypocrisy in social conservatism along with foreign policy bungling.

The moderate Kansas Republicans running this year as moderate Democrats may be the first sign of an American move to decency and common sense.