Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly begins a regular, monthly commentary segment.

An embattled president.

A city election where the party in power is under fire, while the party out of power is fired up.

Incumbents getting pounded for higher taxes, fiscal mishaps and a lack of transparency.

2009? No.

I’m talking about 2005, when Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich first ran for office.

Nina and Karin tapped Democratic anger against the Bush administration when they went after Republicans Kathleen Dunbar and Fred Ronstadt for creating a garbage tax, raising park and rec fees, and botching downtown redevelopment. Now, they’re facing the same thing, as Steve Kozachik and Ben Buehler-Garcia tap Republican anger against the Obama administration and go after the incumbents for raising utility taxes and botching downtown redevelopment. To say that this is an example of chickens coming home to roost is understatement.

It’s more like the chickens coming home for Christmas break, using up all the hot water, tracking mud through the living room and drinking milk out of the jug in the refrigerator.

So who is at fault here? Kathleen and Fred? Karen and Nina? Steve and Ben? I believe that we the voters who are to blame. We live in a Wal-Mart world where we want everything and don’t want to pay for any of it. We want more cops on the street but don’t want to pay the higher taxes that would go along with it.

We claim we want independent-minded politicians and yet elect right and left wing nutjobs to office.

We continue to vote for politicians who promise things that simple logic tells us are impossible.

Do you believe that we can keep our taxes low and spend more on cops and firefighters?

And we can’t let the mainstream media off the hook either.

There’s a lot at stake in this election, but the coverage is the lowest we’ve ever seen.

If you were to pick up the paper or watch TV, you would be hard pressed to see that an election is going on.

When the media doesn’t tell the people what’s going on, they’ll fall for anything a politician has to say.

And these politicians will say just about anything to get elected.