About this voting thing (Part II)

(That's right, a SECOND look at the pratfalls of voting in a "safe" district)


Attempts to pigeonhole by the InterLeft notwithstanding, I am NOT a Republican. Never have been. As an independent voter with a "live and let live" governing philosophy I've always been too fiscally conservative for Democrats (although not nearly fiscally conservative enough for Republicans) and too socially liberal for Republicans (again, not near socially liberal enough for Democrats). One happy side-effect of this is that I always have been allowed to sit out primary elections, let the party loyalists nominate who they think should get the job, and then pick which Party I thought did the best job in weeding out the suck for each particular race.

Typically this meant that I was forced to skip out on a race or two but, for the most part, each party offered up someone that allowed me to cast a vote against John Culberson, even if it was a sacrificial lamb of a candidate who was just there to garner name ID. Unfortunately, as mentioned yesterday, recently this means that I'm almost forced to sit elections out altogether, the decision having primarily been made by the type of person who gets angry and draws up a placard deriding their political opposites as "loosers".

As you can imagine, this is not acceptable. For one: Yes, some Democrats DO have loose morals, but that's no reason to make fun of them for it and, Two: Looking at a long ballot with only one name on a majority of races is depressing. While it's still the case in several races, at least in the primary you get to feel like you've made a decision at some level. Let's face it, the Democratic primary ballot for my precinct could fit on the Sarah Palin's palm.

Because of this, some-odd election cycles ago, the wife and I decided we were going to have to cast aside our aversion to party politics and start casting votes in the Republican primary if we wanted to have any say at all in who represents us, will be judging us, will be the next person to face a horrifying public disgrace while on our watch etc. I mean, if you've got to watch someone implode on a professional level, it should at the least be someone with whom you have a voting connection right?

So we went to Wal-Mart and bought "his and her" matching American Flag shirts, rented a Chevy pick-up truck and cast our ballots. Yay! American Democracy at work.


What they don't tell you in civics class is that the fun didn't stop there. Now both the wife and I are getting e-mails and multiple robo-calls from some guy named Jared who's imploring us to head out to the polls and "take someone with us". We just received the same message from Terry Lowery, who's Link Letter educated us as to the evils of Libertarians, while providing a handy-dandy list of items to bring up at the precinct convention following the election. Cool. And hey, did you know that there was an "active homosexual" (as opposed to a dormant homosexual I'm guessing) who has dared to run for office in today's Republican Party? Unfortunately, Mr. Lowery chose not to name names which is too bad. If the wife and I could vote for him we would. Anything we can do to forward the "vast homosexual conspiracy" that's threatening to overwhelm Houston.

One last thing that I've noticed is this: For someone who didn't want to finish the job he was elected to do, Paul Bettencourt sure is concerned that I vote in "true conservatives" such as he. Maybe their ultimate plan is to resign en masse and throw the County Gov't into an unstable state?


So, go vote, but make sure your call-screening and e-mail security is of the highest level. Or just unplug your land-line. Let this Jared fellow bring his own friends to the polls.