You know, I got so caught up in the presidential race that I almost forgot what a barrel of laughs the state government can be.

I got a reminder last Wednesday during a conference call from local Republican state representatives. They were afraid that Gov. Ed Rendell is trying to create a last-minute budget crisis, and set up Republicans to take the blame.

They said that last year, members of the public were more likely to blame General Assembly Republicans than the governor when the state budget passed late and 250,000 "non-essential" state workers were "furloughed" for a day.

They said they were ready to work straight through to the June 30th deadline. But Democrats said the bill comprising the state budget wouldn't even be out of committee until June 23.

Rendell has his agenda. They have theirs. And Rendell, they claimed, was trying to use the upcoming deadline for leverage -- essentially putting them up against a cliff edge where they'd have no choice but to make compromises.

I couldn't say if he is or not. But that would be consistent with the way things typically get done in Harrisburg.

For years, budget negotiations culminated with an all-night session of one side waiting for the other to compromise first. When the legislature passed a pay raise after midnight in 2005, many critics accused the lawmakers of taking advantage of the late hour to sneak it past.

Whether that was true or not, they've since acknowledged that it didn't look good and set aside the all-nighters. But not, apparently, the brinksmanship.

It reminds me of the situation with me and Steve, a friend with whom I shared an apartment years ago.

Steve was a good guy. He was also a slob, which was problematic because I was a slob too. There was no Felix in the mix; just a couple of Oscars.

Our apartment would get pretty disgusting. But I didn't want to clean because it was mostly his mess and I always ended up cleaning. He didn't want to clean because, I assume, he was thinking the exact same thing.

The only time either one of us would clean was when we were having people over.

And the one who would eventually relent and break out the mop was always the one with the most to lose if our visitors saw the apartment in its natural state. I'd clean if I was having a get-together for people from work, or he'd do it if he was bringing over a woman he was trying to impress.

Even then, the cleaning would take place only after the more motivated of us became resigned to the fact that the other simply wasn't going to tackle the mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen, or the Chamber of Horrors that was our bathroom.

As I'm sure you can imagine, the cleaning was always a half-hearted, last-minute affair. No problem. When our guests were suitably appalled at the state of our apartment, we could simply blame each other.

Maybe it's just human nature. When you have two factions with diametrically opposed goals, one isn't likely to relent unless and until given a motivation to do so.

Then again, Steve and I were a couple of immature, beer-addled 23-year-olds. I'd like to think the elected lawmakers in Harrisburg could do a better job of housekeeping than we did.