First, brace yourself. We now matter. Our area is about to seem like Iowa a year before a presidential election. We are going to be inundated with political mailings, signs, radio and TV ads, robo-calls, personal calls and, yes, probably knocks on doors.

The just-concluded gubernatorial and local races were nothing compared to what we are about to experience. A critical election, which could easily go either way, will occur in one year, and it is important enough that we need to pay attention…