Choices, choices

[hrj]

Well, my California Primary Election absentee ballot has arrived. I've always loved the experience of walking into the polling station at the local elementary school auditorium, having my name checked off the list by the Doddering Little Old Lady who may, in fact, be surviving only for this purpose in life, and sticking my "I voted today" sticker on my security badge holder for the rest of the day. But then, even though my polling station is directly on my way to work, there came an election day when scheduling made it tight to get there. And we'd moved over to Diebold machines and while I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm willing to be cautious on the traceability side. (Mind you, given that I'm in the congressional district that elects Barbara Lee, any serious attempt to tinker with our local election returns would stand out like a turd in a punchbowl, to use one of aastg's colorful expressions.) And the final advantage of going to permanent absentee status is that I can get my voting done with early and then ignore all the electioneering.

The problem is, I'm leaning towards voting for someone who has dropped out of the race. To start off with, I consider it obscene that the presidential electioneering started the day after the last mid-term election closed. I want my elected officials to have their attention on governing, not on bopping all over the country working on their next election. And for anybody to be a current front-runner (in any party), they pretty much had to start that early, so I started off with a mad on for everyone who actually has a chance of getting the nomination. And secondly, I think the most pressing issue of the day is restoring the power of the Constitution and the rule of law. All the issues about war and taxes and immigration and the economy are pretty much moot if we have an executive branch that thinks it can do whatever it damned well pleases and the Constitution can go screw itself. And the rest of the gutless wonders in Washington are standing around critiquing the cut of the Emperor's Clothes. So for the last year or so I've been holding out for a presidential candidate who would stand up and say that his/her platform explicitly includes restoring and upholding the Constitution.

So far, the only person I've heard saying anything close to this is Chris Dodd. Who quit after the Iowa caucases. Well, it isn't exactly a point in his favor that he's a quitter. But how else am I going to communicate to the surviving candidates that they have a lot of work to do to rise above the level of a yellow dog in my estimation?

It's going to be a loooooong election season.

Comments

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Can you vote uncommitted? That is what a lot of folks in my state who want to vote on the Dem side are being suggested to do. (I think there are 4 Dems on our ballot, one of whom has dropped out; Obama & Edwards removed their names.) I'm so disgusted with politics that I'm quite happy that all the Dems are sticking to their word to not campaign here.