A toast for the New Year: Here’s to no politics.

There will be no national election, no state election and no St. Mary’s County election in 2013. The roadways will be blessedly free of campaign signs.

Lawyers won’t be squabbling about how unprofessional other lawyers are as they try to prove they have the best judicial temperament.

Letters to the editor won’t be forecasting the end of America as we know it if their candidate is not elected president. Well, some letter writers might still predict the nation’s imminent demise; they really don’t care for the president who will be sworn in for a second term next month.

It’s not that we don’t like elections; we do. They are the long, noisy, imperfect way we decide which direction our county, state and nation will head. They are an outlet and a safety valve. When politicians become arrogant, embarrass themselves or stray too far from what their constituents want them to do, they don’t have to be endured endlessly or removed by force. Then can be escorted out in the next election.

But there is a time to campaign and there is time to do the job the candidates were elected to do. Now is the time to get to work.

In St. Mary’s County, where the most contentious political campaign this year was for circuit court judge, the winner, Judge David Densford, can concentrate on the cases before him. So can the challenger, Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Stanalonis, and the rest of the prosecutor’s office.

Congress has the chance to go about repairing the damage it has done through gridlock and excessive partisanship, which have retarded the nation’s economic recovery. This has had a direct impact on jobs and investment in St. Mary’s County.

We’re not among those who think Congress is populated by nothing but knaves, scoundrels and fools. But as an institution it is broken and its failure to do its basic work is disgraceful.

In the new year, members of the 113th Congress, though largely made up of the same men and women as the 112th, will have a chance to chart a new course. It could be their last chance.

In 2014 every member of the House of Representatives and one-third of the senators will be running for re-election. There will be no presidential campaign to distract voters’ attention from them then.

Voters may be spared any full-bore campaign in 2013, but the reality is it won’t be a year without politics. There is no such thing. The hope, though, is that the people in Congress will see that it is in their best interest to try to impress us in 2013.

In 2014, everything save the presidency will be on the table for voters here. In addition to sending people to Congress, Marylanders will elect a new governor and they’ll pick who will serve in the state legislature. In St. Mary’s County, we’ll elect five county commissioners, two school board members, a state’s attorney, a sheriff, a treasurer, a circuit court clerk, a register of wills and three orphans court judges.

It will be a circus, as St. Mary’s County elections always are, and it will point St. Mary’s County in directions that will impact the lives of everyone who lives here in ways large and small.

But before all that, back to that new year toast. May 2013 bring blessed political silence.