Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets attendees after speaking at the Scott County Democrats Red, White and Blue Banquet in Davenport, Iowa, Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) 
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., stands onstage during a commercial break during a CNN town hall at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This weekend, between snow excursions and football commercials - does the NFL have a contract with advertisers that Peyton Manning has to be in every commercial break? - I had a moment of clarity.
We are easily distracted.
We as a collective populace are playing Candy Crush on a tablet in between snaps of an NFL game. We are checking text messages while we are waiting for the ticker to update how much money "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has made to date.
In truth, our draw to the flame of the topic du jour has become the bait to which the frontrunners of each political party who would like to be the leader of the free world have risen.
Think about it. We are a week from the first poll that truly matters - the Iowa caucus - and the jazz hands around the political discourse have us bouncing from the racial intentions of the Academy Awards to the final season of "American Idol" to whoseherpants Kardashian.
It's how the former host of "Celebrity Apprentice" and the modern-day female version of Richard Nixon are the front-runners in their respective parties.
All you need is a clever hashtag and you're the next big thing.
It is convenient and conniving. We have a short memory and a long list of outrage. It makes it easy and impossible to survive in the public eye.
It also should make us sad.
We have morphed into the crazed mass that is obsessed with the noise but distracted by the details.
The Democratic leader - Hillary Clinton - is telling her supporters all is well. Well, OK. She has failed to pull away from a forgettable cast of characters in part because of an email scandal that grows monthly. She is supposed to release her tens of thousands of contraband emails by Friday. Of course, her people are applying for an extension until the last day of February.
Not to be outdone, the other side needs a Republican afterthought to put clarity on the GOP group skate that has become a three-ring political circus.
"This race should not be about who can grasp the ring. Electing Gollum should not be our objective," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote on Facebook about GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Jay GreesonThat objective - getting and retaining a government job rather than making the hard decisions and sacrifices of doing a government job - has never been more blurred.
It has become such a traffic jam of muddled ideas and cults of personality that we hear Trump making jokes about shooting people in the street not altering his popularity and reports of Hillary Clinton's staff copying top-secret emails to circumvent protocol, procedure and potentially federal regulations.
And those are the party frontrunners, for crying out loud. It's a fact that potentially could prompt billionaire Michael Bloomberg into the presidential race as a third-party candidate.
A week away, we are no closer to finding a solution. Heck, we have a hard time identifying the problems.
A week away, and it's anyone's race on each side - whether America knows it or not.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com. His "Right to the Point" column runs on A2 Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.