How I vote
Tomorrow’s Election Day. You may not have heard.
Living in the city I cover is normally a good thing: It spurs me on to work harder, exposes me to stories that might not otherwise appear on my radar and makes me more accountable to my readers, whom I can run into at the store, in restaurants or even when picking up a prescription at the pharmacy.
But it makes Election Day a little strange. As a result of my job I am, I think, one of the more educated voters around, but I also have had personal dealings with nearly all the candidates, and while I keep my personal feelings off the page — in 2004, representatives of two rival city council candidates both tried to have me fired, since I was clearly in the tank for the other guy — it confuses things when going into the polling booth.
I should vote for the best candidate, certainly, but what if he’s a complete jerk? Should that make a difference? I will be dealing with him (or her) for four or more years, after all. How about how good of a quote someone is? Or how time-consuming it is to interview them?
In the end, though, it almost doesn’t matter: Every year, Jenn and I go to lunch — this year, we’re going to go to breakfast, to try and beat at least some of the crowds at the polling station — and go through the sample ballot, and she quizzes me about each of the candidates, going beyond what I’ve written about them previously, to the sort of stuff I mention above.
And then she goes and cancels out most of my votes anyway.
5 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Cancelling out your bizarro, off-the-wall votes is a verrry dirty job but someone has to do it. You go, Jenn!
Comment by Mozzbi — November 4, 2008 @ 17:56
How does one cancel out “Sheriff Mr. Pokey Horse from the Happy Bob Camper Show” scrawled in crayon across the write-in line?
Comment by Dmitry — November 6, 2008 @ 5:03
I happen to think that Sheriff Mr. Pokey Horse has a lot of worthwhile ideas and the sort of insight and temperament that would make him a good elected official.
Comment by Beau — November 6, 2008 @ 11:35
Sheriff Mr. Pokey Horse is a fine man who is ready to take us to the next level of leadership. His time has come. I heard him speak at the Rotary Club in Hesperia on Saturday and was amazed at his insight, passion, and amazing mustache.
Comment by Cameron S. — November 6, 2008 @ 22:52
Sheriff Mr. Pokey Horse is a dangerous radical and a threat to our community. I appreciate all of the work Jenn has put in to keeping him off our oats and out of our bedrooms.
Comment by Joel — November 11, 2008 @ 14:56