Martha Coakley or Scott Brown – who is the best choice for the vacant Senate seat? That's what we all will have to decide between now and Tuesday, January 19th. The unfortunate truth, regardless of which candidate you vote for, is that this elected office would have been best served by someone who has already sat as a member of Congress – that is a widely accepted fact, given the pure nature of the Senate as a body. Well, that doesn't matter anymore, so let's take a closer look at what we have to choose from.

First off, just to clear the air, it's the peoples seat, not the Kennedy's or the Democrats. Second, the third candidate, Joe Kennedy, are you kidding? Third, Scott Brown is not Bush/Cheney.

In case we lose you later on, for the remainder of this View from Prospect Hill, we will be talking about the two main candidates in this race. We are sure Joe Kennedy, the Independent Party candidate, is a great guy and smart as Hell, but really doesn't factor into this race on any level.

The campaign between the two front runners – Coakley and Brown – has been somewhat tame, considering what is at stake. One says vote for me, because if you vote for her, you will get a rubber stamp and a lot of the same ole, same ole. The other says vote for me, because he is just like the reckless and evil Bush/Cheney.

They're both right, and they're both wrong. And the real problem with this whole special election rears its ugly head – the short timeframe has made the waters murkier than normal and it's hard for the normal every day person to find out what the real deal is with each of these two candidates.

Either candidate is going to walk into office with a lot of pressure from the party they're affiliated with, that's for sure. Regardless of which party you belong to (which around these parts is overwhelmingly Democratic), that's not necessarily a good thing. There's a reason why some longer serving members of the Senate and Congress are not seeking reelection in the next cycle – this is 2010 – and things are a lot different today than they were 10 years ago.

Don't read that the wrong way – you cannot seriously believe that every one of the problems of today are directly attributed solely to Bush/Cheney – what we mean is simply that today the whole world is a lot different than it was 10 years ago in many ways – some good, some not so good and some very new. These candidates have plenty of political rhetoric, some of which causes concern. Coakley's insistence that Scott Brown is just Bush/Cheney reborn is completely and utterly ridiculous. Brown doing his damnedest to make people forget he is a Republican is equally silly.

The head-scratching moment so far between the two? Easy – Coakley making the statement that the Taliban are gone from Afghanistan. We don't even know what to say about that, frankly – it doesn't even make sense – and it honestly scares some of us.

The good news is – both of the main candidates have decent track records in public office, they both have a fairly good grasp on domestic issues and differ primarily in the details of the heath care debate and national security. So at the risk of infuriating one party or the other, instead of endorsing one candidate over the other, we will simply ask you to ignore what political party Coakley and Brown are affiliated with and pay attention to the candidates themselves. There's not much time, so head to Google and arm yourself with the right information before you vote.

Most of all – remember to vote this coming Tuesday, January 19th.