I love Facebook, I really truly do. People send you requests asking to be your friend, which tickles the hell out of me every time; you keep abreast of the large and small developments in the lives of said friends; you get emails about and invitations to stuff that's nearly always somehow relevant. It's dangerously addictive in the networked life.

I logged on yesterday morning, and noticed that someone in my network had become a supporter of Kristen McElroy, running for State Senate in SD-6 against Kemp Hannon.

Compare the two web pages, and you can see this year's fight in a nutshell. On the one hand, you have a young mother - McElroy has three kids under four - on the other, another decades-long incumbent whose bio doesn't even give a date of birth. To quote her Facebook page,

As a mother of three young children Kristen knows how hard it has become to raise a family in Long Island, NY. With the rising property taxes, soaring fuel prices and rapid increase of healthcare and prescription drugs costs; Kristen wants to hold the line on taxes, funnel education money back into the classroom rather than high administrative costs and bring the people’s voice back to Albany rather than lobbyists and special interest groups.

I suspect you'll be hearing a lot more about Kristen McElroy.