Can’t Even Throw My Vote Away
I’ve spent the last half-hour sort of but not really paying attention to an episode of Jeopardy airing on a local channel. Near the end was a brief in-show commercial for the antacid which sponsored the closed-captioning for that episode. Otherwise, every single commercial was a political ad for various candidates in the upcoming state elections. No exaggeration: nothing but political commercials. And mostly attack ads, too. I haven’t heard that much ominous music since my Goth days, and even then I went in for stuff with actual melodies. No mention of my country or state turning into a totalitarian dystopia, either.
“Well,” I thought, “I’ve already said that from now on I’m going to throw my votes away and just vote libertarian. I wonder who they're running in Connecticut, anyway?” I checked the state party’s site to find out.
Oh Christ, this is sad. Six candidates in the whole election: three guys running for comptroller, treasurer and secretary of the state, one guy running for US Congress but not in my district, and two guys running for the state house of representatives, but neither in my district.
Nobody running for governor, U.S. Senator, attorney general, or any state legislators that I can actually vote for, where I live.
So what do I do — skip the big races altogether and vote only on those three questions that can be answered “libertarian”? Hold my nose and vote for the lesser evil among the two big-party candidates, as I’ve always done before? Or cast my vote for another third party? That would mean a choice between the Greens (no), Constitution Party (hell no, they’re theocrats), or the American Reform party. Except I don’t think that last one is running candidates anyway.
There’s definite irony and probably a profound lesson in the ballot I’ll face now that I’ve finally grown disgusted enough with the system to actually Do Something about it in the voting booth.
“Well,” I thought, “I’ve already said that from now on I’m going to throw my votes away and just vote libertarian. I wonder who they're running in Connecticut, anyway?” I checked the state party’s site to find out.
Oh Christ, this is sad. Six candidates in the whole election: three guys running for comptroller, treasurer and secretary of the state, one guy running for US Congress but not in my district, and two guys running for the state house of representatives, but neither in my district.
Nobody running for governor, U.S. Senator, attorney general, or any state legislators that I can actually vote for, where I live.
So what do I do — skip the big races altogether and vote only on those three questions that can be answered “libertarian”? Hold my nose and vote for the lesser evil among the two big-party candidates, as I’ve always done before? Or cast my vote for another third party? That would mean a choice between the Greens (no), Constitution Party (hell no, they’re theocrats), or the American Reform party. Except I don’t think that last one is running candidates anyway.
There’s definite irony and probably a profound lesson in the ballot I’ll face now that I’ve finally grown disgusted enough with the system to actually Do Something about it in the voting booth.
posted by Jennifer Abel at 7:48 PM
11 Comments:
As I said previously, the solution is simple..."Jennifer for _______" (fill in the blank).
You know I'm right.
Like I said, Moose, I can't run for office when I'm working as a journalist. Besides, today my paper ran a story I wrote about the one-year anniversary of Connecticut's civil-union law, so by tomorrow there should be plenty of irate and poorly spelled letters to the editor accusing me of being a tool of the homosexual agenda. Nobody's going to vote for me.
Nobody's going to vote for me.
Well, you did say you wanted to throw your vote away.
Why can't you run for office while working as a journalist. Seriously, if there's some prohibition against it, I'm not aware of it.
How about the Connecticut for Lieberman Party?
How about the Connecticut for Lieberman Party?
I think she'd rather swallow a cyanide tablet.
My advice? Vote LP where you can, vote for lesser evils in close races, and write in votes for people that you like in all of the other contests.
As would I, but take a look at the link in my comment above. It appears that someone beat Senator Lieberman to the ConnecticutforLieberman.com domain name.
Damn you, Jason. I was depressed enough already, without being reminded of Lieberman.
Sorry.
I forgot to answer your question, Moose: I doubt there's a law saying "journalists can't go in for politics," but considering how many political things I have to cover, I doubt my editor would let me keep my job if I tried to run for office.
I think I'll probably vote for the three libertarians and then straight Democrat the rest of the way. Anything to get the Republicans out of office. There's a couple of state Republicans I actually kind of like, or would if they had the guts to repudiate some of the nasty things their party has done recently. But they haven't.
I forgot to answer your question, Moose
Thanks for thinking of me ;)
Have you thought to ask your editor? Well, if you have absolutely no desire then forget it, but might be worth asking if nothing else.
Simple: Write in "None of the Above."
That's what I do, anyway.
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