The year that is 2012 is just under way, and as we not so boldly predicted last week, change is already afoot. After all, predicting change for the coming year is the prognosticating equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Nevertheless, the burgeoning year is offering up its fair share of change, at the local, state and national levels.

The just-finished work of the Washington State Redistricting Committee will have an impact on the Key Peninsula. Perhaps the biggest change for the area is the fact that the 6th Congressional District will now include all of Kitsap County and will be represented by long-serving incumbent Congressman Norm Dicks, D-Belfair. The county is currently split between the 6th and 1st Congressional districts.

On the legislative district side, it turns out the more things change, the more they stay the same. Earlier draft maps which moved the Key Peninsula area from the 26th Legislative District to the 35th turned out not to make the final version. In fact, the current boundaries of Kitsap County’s three primary legislative districts — the 23rd, the 26th and the 35th — remain largely unchanged. It turns out most of the legislative redistricting drama took place in eastern Washington. (See the redistricting story on page 1A.)

Meanwhile, in Olympia, state lawmakers will gather on Monday for the start of the 60-day regular legislative session. The hot topic — despite last month’s special legislative session — will be the state budget.

During the 17-day special session, legislators managed to put a down payment of $480 million on a $1.4 billion gap between revenues and planned state spending. Unfortunately, the special session included its share of fund transfers, delayed payments, capturing of unspent agency funds from the previous biennium, counting new federal funds and other budget gimmicks.

It remains to be seen if the 2012 Legislature will bring real change in terms of a sustainable state budget that includes prioritized spending in line with revenues, although we predict the Legislature will opt to put Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed half-cent sales tax increase on the ballot.

In the world of national politics, Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses marked the “official” start of the process for the Republicans to choose their party’s presidential nominee. We won’t even hazard a guess as to who the ultimate winner will be, as we haven’t seen this much jockeying between front-runners since we last caught a race at Emerald Downs.

Whoever the eventual nominee turns out to be, he or she will go up against President Obama, who was elected in 2008 on a platform of hope and, you guessed it, change.

There’s been a lot of standstill and not a lot of action with Congress, and we believe voters will demand more results. Republicans surely will throw the state of the economy at Obama’s feet, although we believe the president inherited problems no one could fix in a single four-year term.

It might not matter. Obama campaigned for change, and change may whisk him right back out of the White House.