It's always good to get outside of Washington, D.C. and take the temperature of the nation, and it's even better to do it in some very different places on the map. Despite the differences, one thing is very obvious - both parties are already looking with great interest to the 2016 election for President, but there is apprehension about the choices on each side, as once again I came away with a good feeling about this country, no matter the level of vitriol aimed at those in power in both parties.
Ohio and Texas are two very different states, but they share an awful lot in common. Their urban cores certainly lean to the Democrats, while much of the rural areas of the Buckeye and Lone Star states are very Republican in their political leanings.
And they both have Republican governors who seem like they could be part of the 2016 race for the White House, along with some history when it comes to the job of President.
The Easter break first took our family to Columbus, Ohio, where my wife's grandmother turned 98 years old; unfortunately she spent her birthday in the hospital because of recent medical troubles.
The extended family poured into the medical ward on the west side of Columbus, not far from a new casino that has sprouted on the site of an old Delphi auto parts plant.
Down the street at her home, there was an envelope from the White House on the old style tablecloth in the dining room; inside, a stock greeting from the President and First Lady for those who celebrate milestone birthdays.
"We send our warmest wishes for a happy birthday," the note from the Obamas began. "You are part of an extraordinary generation that has helped guide America through times of calm and crisis, renewing the values that define our Nation."
Just a couple miles from there down Broad Street, we took the kids to the Ohio state Capitol, completed back in 1861, a building filled with the echoes of giant Ohio politicians and past political battles in this country.
We visited the state Senate and went into the galleries of the state House, where Abraham Lincoln spoke to a joint session of the Ohio General Assembly in February of 1861, a few weeks before he took the oath of office and became President.
Ohio has had more Presidents than any other state, with eight - you hear that fact a lot from Ohio politicians - but no one from the Buckeye State has made it to the White House since Warren Harding was elected in 1920; that's 96 years ago.
The Ohio relatives on my wife's side of the family are much like lots of other families around the nation - split quite sharply along Red and Blue lines, and sometimes not on the same team within those parties.
I heard Democrats raging about the Republicans and Democrats aggravated about the policy choices made by President Obama as well. And on the flip side, there was grumbling about the GOP's leaders in the Congress and the standard bearers they might choose in 2016.
When it came to Gov. John Kasich (R), there was general agreement that he would likely run for President, one of what may well be a crowded GOP field for 2016 that could involve others like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and others.
Speaking of Texas, just 48 hours later, I was talking about the 2016 race in a much different place in the Lone Star State, a hip, Mexican restaurant along South Congress in Austin, Texas, as Kasich's name - and a number of other Republicans came up as well.
While our kids stuffed tortilla chips down their throats in a very liberal area of town, and our wives chatted about their days of working together on Capitol Hill, my friend told me there's no doubt in his mind that Gov. Rick Perry of Texas will also be running in 2016.
In fact, just up the street the next day, one GOP Presidential hopeful was actually in Austin, as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) spoke at the University of Texas; if you haven't noticed, Rubio continues to tour the nation in what already appears to be an all-out effort to lay the groundwork for a run for the White House.
Along with visiting the Texas Tower and UT, we took the kids to the Texas State Capitol, which certainly ranks up there in the visits that I've made to Capitol buildings around the nation - the kids declared that it was, indeed, "Texas-sized."
Maybe the most interesting factoid from our visit to the Texas State Capitol was that the Texas State Senate has 31 members; that means state Senators actually represent more people per member than the U.S. House delegation from Texas, which now has 36 seats.
As in Ohio a few days earlier, it was a real treat to walk into the House and Senate chambers; it was also fun to eavesdrop on some of the elected lawmakers as they gave tours to their constituents.
During our visit to Texas, my wife and I were struck by the large number of Mexican license plates as we drove down the main highways between Austin and San Antonio. It turned out there was a reason for that.
"Mexican visitors are a boon to the local economy," read the headline in the San Antonio Express-News, talking about how the Easter break has become a big shopping trip to San Antonio for many Mexican nationals who have higher incomes and extra money to spend.
"It's kind of like a second Christmas," one tourism planner told the newspaper.
San Antonio is one of the cities that Democrats have talked about as a possible gathering spot for their party's 2016 convention; while Mayor Julian Castro has said he won't run for President, he is a rising star in his party - watch to see if that can bring the Democrats to the Alamo.
I'll say this about San Antonio - as a big convention city, they certainly seem to have the necessary hotel space that other cities struggle with - we'll see if it becomes a 2016 player, or not.
As for the Democrats and 2016, there really wasn't much discussed on this trip other than Hillary Clinton, but there wasn't the feeling that she would be an automatic slam dunk nominee either. After all, she didn't close the deal against Barack Obama in 2008.
From San Antonio, we ventured into the Hill Country of Texas, where you didn't have to look far to find more political rumblings - most of them against the current Obama Administration.
"It's not much Obama, but I built it!" the sign said on the door of a real estate storefront in Bandera, Texas, where you didn't get the feeling that you were going to run into too many Democrats - unless they were visiting the self-proclaimed "Cowboy Capital of the World."
One thing I didn't see any evidence of in cowboy country (my Wyoming relatives might think they own that label) was any mention of the BLM/cattle grazing fees dispute from out in Nevada; I also noted the almost universal silence from Republicans on that in the Congress.
Before jumping on the plane back home, we rumbled up the road for one final tourist visit to the Texas White House, where President Lyndon Johnson turned the LBJ ranch into his own version of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It was a reminder of the importance of the 2016 race and why the two parties contest these elections like they do - and why the average voter gets more personally involved than in a mid-term Congressional election year.
To go through the house and see the dozens of telephones that LBJ had installed - like one under the dining room table, or a few in the bedroom - you realized what a political animal he was.
"This was President Johnson’s genius," President Obama had said in Austin just a week before my family visited the Texas capital. "As a master of politics and the legislative process, he grasped like few others the power of government to bring about change."
In several rooms, Johnson had three television sets side-by-side - it was a reminder that back when he was in office, all you had to deal with on TV was NBC, CBS and ABC.
Times have changed.
As we stood outside the LBJ home, I stared at the giant "Cabinet Oak" tree, where Johnson would convene meetings of top aides outside on everything from Civil Rights to Vietnam.
Down the road was the old one room school house where Johnson had gone as a child; he used it as a backdrop to sign education legislation while President.
The tour guide told of how LBJ would bring aides down to the ranch and meet with them at all times of day and night; in his bedroom, with the First Lady sleeping next to him, or even, as he sat, in the bathroom.
A trip that started with birthday greetings from a President to a 98 year old family matriarch ended with a trip down memory lane about a President who knew how to pull the levers of political pressure maybe like no other, and included a lot of talk about 2016.
Where things go over the next two years, there was little agreement about that. But it's clear a lot of people are already thinking about what's next for 2016.
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