The Big Bad "D"

Considering the big PA primary is tomorrow, this seems like an appropriate time to talk politics again. I was truly hoping that both parties would still be unresolved by the time Oregon got to vote, but I suppose it was too much to ask. The only remaining contender to McCain is Ron Paul, and though his devotees still hang from the freeway overpasses, doggedly waving signs and flags and chucking campaign stickers down at passing traffic in the hopes that something will stick, I'm afraid that he has descended down to the voting tier that includes John the Baptist, Yosemite Sam, and Bullwinkle.

I wish that Oregon had an open primary, because then I could register as an independent and be done with all this partisan hullabaloo. But regrettably, it does not. To make matters worse, now that McCain has the nomination, the Republican ballot is woefully boring, with no major contest and many unchallenged candidates. So I did what any red-blooded American hankering to make a difference would do. I went and re-registered as. . .

(dum dum dum)

I have to confess, I have always, always been a moderate. Not that I'm moderate on every issue, but I side with some of the things each party has to offer and think they're absolute doofuses on other things. Both of them. I've never really seen either one as being better or worse than the other. In fact, if it wasn't already being used by some funky AARP campaign, I would consider this to be my perfect political symbol.



But I come from a long line of Republican kin, so there was certainly a very real risk of being disowned by the family. Plus, I have to admit that I've grown comfortable with the Republican label. It's a bit hard to think that now I am officially a Democrat. But now I can also officially say that I don't hold much stock in either party, and am now proudly bipartisan. One America!

It's amazingly easy to jump parties in Oregon. You can do it again and again to your heart's delight, so long as you get your mind made up a few days before the ballots are mailed out. It is so easy, in fact, that some conservative radio hosts have been lately encouraging Republicans to switch over so that they can cast a vote for Hillary - i.e. sabotage the Democratic chance in November. This, to me, is a despicable mindset, a divisive and pointedly unpatriotic way to go about an election, and anyone who switches for this reason should be strung up by their hanging chads and forced to watch all 30-something presidential debates end to end, including pundit commentary. The very idea irks me so much that when I re-registered, I was sorely tempted to include a note that read, "I am not a saboteur! I am inspired!"

And now I have an interesting ballot in front of me. There are scores of contested races on the Democratic side, and since I've been paying attention only to the presidential race, I have to go do some homework to figure out how to vote for them. I really only switched ships for the sake of the Hillary/Obama contest, so I might just vote on that and nothing else...oh, but...grr, errm...it seems terrible to leave something blank on the ballot. I guess that's left over from college testing days when I had to fill in the little bubbles for the answers, and it was better to fill them all in on a guess than not at all. I suppose it doesn't work that way for democracy.

At least I have one figured out:



Which is not to say that I've made up my mind for November. All candidates get an equal evaluation past the primaries, says I. One election at a time.