Given how little attention both major Presidential candidates have given the subject, yes, it is news when one of them mentions space in a campaign speech.

Liberal blogger Tom Burka wrote:

Even before he started his campaign in earnest this year, President Bush made a crucial and perhaps fatal misstep when he announced a manned mission to Mars in January – and then abandoned the initiative as hastily as he had adopted it. In doing so, the president alienated the increasingly important group of voters who have given up and “just want to get off Earth.”

“Bush misunderestimated the importance of the ‘Get me out of here’ bloc,” said Dr. Herb Flaggellum, a former thyroid doctor-turned-pundit.

Exit polling will almost certainly show that in a sea of issues baffling undecided voters, Mr. Bush’s lack of commitment to expensive space exploration was a deciding factor in the election today. That, and his failure to wear a receiver and earpiece in the first debate.

Those would be what Shrub used when he spoke about smoking guns becoming smoking mushrooms?

Robert