Election Day
by Brian
No use getting overexcited about it, but I thought I'd at least mark the occasion. Maybe some small good will come of it.
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When we left Hollywood, we found our way here...
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10 Comments:
I'm a slacker. Everyday for the past month I've been telling myself I need to read the voter guide and read all propositions etc etc...and here it is today and I'm going to be scrambling at lunch trying to read through 1a, 1b, 1c, so on and so on trying to make a quick decision.
The ballot in California this year is the longest one I've seen in a long time. Too much!
My brother-in-law and his wife did something creative yesterday that I had never heard of. They got together with other couples for a "Junto" where each person presents a proposition or measure or whatever so that everyone can make a decision rather than scrambling like me trying to sort out 50 different measures/props/judges/senators/etc.
Brilliant idea!
Now I see the juntosociety online. I guess this has been around for a few hundred years. Time to read up...
Turnout was surprisingly high for a midterm election at my precinct--I didn't have to wait in line (that only happens for presidential elections), but the booths were full and people were filling out their ballots wherever they could grab some space. Precinct workers confirmed it was above expectations, and this on a rainy day.
I even overheard three other voters making sure they got the name correct for the write-in candidate for district attorney. Now that's democracy in action! :-)
But as far as the national scene goes, there's not much interest in what happens here (well, except for some national media attention in the DA race). No senators up for election, and our representative looks to coast to reelection.
As I was looking through the ballots at lunch I found out one of our senators was up for re-election. This seems like a big deal and yet this was the first I had heard of it.
Why was there no campaigning? Like....none. I didn't even know the race was on and that kind of made me angry...at myself for not knowing but also that California is such a lock to vote for the incumbent democrat that she didn't even bother putting up one sign in my town! Grrr..but, hey, the less money she has to spend, the better for the state, right? Same for my disctric representative. Not even a word...at least she got me a capitol tour last year....
Anyway, I'm wearing my "I Voted" sticker proudly. Take THAT Absentee Voters! ;-)
I am a night owl by nature, but I always vote before 7 a.m. I don't want the powers that be to change the time the polls open, so I show my support for the 6 a.m. opening by hauling my carcass out of bed. I vote in the "warming building" in a local park, and it's in a beautiful location...a small pond, changing leaves all around, birds singing. It adds to the general sense of well-being I get when I vote. This appears to be a better experience than the one offered to many voters in Philadelphia, who reportedly showed up to vote, only to find that the polling places were not handicap acessible! Very scary.
Well, looks like the Democrats have taken back the House, so like I hoped, some small good will come of it. It will be tougher to pass the most egregious legislation, and there should be at least some oversight now.
It's not much, but it's something. Baby steps.
One giant step is Rumsfeld resigning. Montana has been declared in Democratic column, so if Webb holds the lead in Virginia, the Democrats have control of the Senate (provided Lieberman doesn't go Republican, an unsettling rumor I've read)
There is no good explanation as to why Bush kept Rumsfeld in there for so long after the man requested MANY TIMES to resign. Even outside of performance, politics, experience, ethics or anything else, you'd think it would be a rule in organizing the defense department (or any other): If someone repeatedly states he doesn't want to be there, let him go. Sheesh
There is no good explanation as to why Bush kept Rumsfeld in there for so long
Perhaps firing him would have been admitting defeat, in some form, over Iraq.
Now with the defeat in the House of Representatives he's a good thing to blame the defeat on.
Hmmm, sounds like there's a good analogy between Rumsfeld and the Iraq war....
Now that I've gotten my cheap jab in there, I thought it was just that Rumsfeld offered to resign, as in, well, if the Prez doesn't want me here, then I'll go. I didn't think he actually didn't want to be there.
And having said that, I will say that while I hate Bush and Cheney and Rice and Wolfowitz, and I fault US commanders in Iraq for doing many things wrong, and Rumsfeld deserves blame, too, and probably should have had his resignation accepted after the '04 election, I actually kinda like the guy. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I think he's misperceived by the popular media. He was thought to be on the verge of being ousted before 9/11, since his proposals for radical reorganization of defense were being met with such stiff resistance from the military top brass. I think he was right then, and he's had some other good ideas, but he can't sidestep responsibility for some other egregious errors.
And one more thing about the election: the Daily Show always goes overboard with a big promotion for their extra-special live election night show, and it always ends up being not as good as most of their regular shows, and this year they even managed to drag The Colbert Report down with them. Why don't they just give it up?
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