Miscellaneous: Early And Often

I know I’ve been neglecting you. Blame recuperation and a final frenzy of rewrite work. I’ve been focused on nothing else, so even if I had time to post I don’t have anything to post about. I still haven’t seen Borat, fer cryin’ out loud. (Although I did manage to catch The Last King of Scotland. Forest Whitaker’s performance as Idi Amin is spellbinding. The rest of the movie is good, too.)

I did, however, make time to exercise my franchise yesterday. Also, I voted.

I went to the polling place for two reasons. One, to preserve lap dancing within the Seattle city limits. The pursuit of happiness, people. It says it right there in the Declaration of Independence. Although in this case, you don’t have to pursue it. It’s already in your lap.

And two, to cast my biennial protest vote. Metropolitan Seattle (which is actually metronatural, according to our godawful new slogan) is a one-party town, the kind of place where NPR tote bags are handed out as you enter the city. I use mine to muffle my screams. We’re represented in the House by ultra-liberal Jim McDermott. He routinely receives over 75% of the vote. The GOP has never mounted a credible challenge to him, which means the seat is his until he keels over. And possibly well after that if he has the right handlers.

Personally, I like a little variety. Keeps our representatives on their toes. So I vowed several years ago never to vote for McDermott again. Whenever he’s up for re-election, I go with a write-in candidate.

To date, I have put my support behind advice columnist Dan Savage, the anchor of the Mariners’ starting pitching staff, Seattle’s most accurate weatherman, and Rosemarie. Any of whom would do a fine job in the other Washington.

When I got to the polls yesterday, I was offered a choice: standard paper balloting or electronic voting. I’ve never used the latter, and I didn’t want to pass up a chance to have my vote hacked. The precinct only had one such machine available, leading to a fifteen minute wait. When it was my turn, all went swimmingly. I told the machine I wanted to vote for a write-in candidate, and it took me to touch screen keyboard. All I had to do was type in the candidate’s name, and it would appear electronically on the ballot.

So I voted to send myself to Congress. I just had to see how my name looked on an official ballot. Damn good, I must say. McDermott currently has a commanding lead, but you never know. There could be a late-breaking groundswell. Maybe the people have had enough.