By Jonathan Lindberg

Is it just me, or does politics these days seem more like a really bad play with an ending predictable and contrived, and a cast of players that already know their parts and no matter how hard they try they cannot seem to break away from the already approved script?

Since the middle of last year, the race in Tennessee for the United States Senate has been divided by campaign advisors and consultants into three separate seasons. The first season, fundraising and grassroots, lasted all of last year and into April. During this time, both Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary were the most active communicators. Using constant emails and endless trips from one end of the state to the other, their hope was to define Bob Corker as a moderate, pushing him as close to the center as possible. The tactics seemed effective, as Corker barely peaked over 10% in any poll West of Chattanooga.

The second season of this race is the one we find ourselves in now, the one-man-media-machine, that being Bob Corker. If any headline has come out of this race so far, it is this: Bob Corker is a fundraising machine (showing no disparity between money from Democrats or Republicans). With a four-to-one advantage in funds, Corker has the luxury of running an endless string of mostly-unopposed ads in every market across the state with the hopes of defining himself as a conservative. The question remains, will the efforts of Bryant and Hilleary to paint Corker as a moderate-in-conservative-clothing stick? So far, Corker is out of single-digits and rising in the polls.

The last part of the race should take place sometime July, when