I am Karan from Olympia, WA.
Almost every other name used here is a pseodonym pseudonim pseudonymn alias.
The rest of it is true - mostly - and all of it is my own.
Don't even think about taking any of it, unless of course, you want to pay me.
Random Wisdom: Chance favors the prepared mind - Louis Pasteur
We moved to Washington on February 14, 1985 and I registered to vote here just one week later. By the time we had our first statewide primary, I discovered something about the Washington state political system that made me giddy with joy, the “Blanket Primary”.
In a traditional closed primary, a voter can only vote for candidates within that voter’s pre-designated party affiliation.
I was truly delighted with the blanket primary. It was my chance to select my candidate’s opponent! Of course, if I my candidate was in a true heat, then my vote was better placed with my candidate to insure that s/he advanced to the final election. However, during the last 18 years, my candidate has always been the front runner, leaving me free to vote for the biggest dufus on the other ticket.
The trick was to select the best opponent, the candidate that would stand diametrically opposite my candidate. This was an important distinction to make. Candidates that were close on issues blended in voter minds and the political races were closer, too close in some cases.
There was once when it was particularly hard for me to support my candidate in this odd way. This primary was one in which a hard-core republican named Lynda Smith was running for a US Senate seat. My candidate, Patti Murray, was running as a democrat. Lynda Smith was in a close race for the republican slot. I cannot emphasize how much I hated Lynda Smith. She was abrasive, she didn’t share my environmental concerns and pretty much she was against everything I believed in and yet, I gave her my vote. In the end, it worked, Lynda Smith ran against Patti Murray and they were as different as Crisco and sandpaper. Happily, Patti Murray easily won the senate seat.
Despite my love of the blanket primary, today it looks as if the end is here. Our paper, The Olympian reports that a federal appeals court struck down the blanket primary. My only hope now is that we go to the US Supreme Court and fight for the right to vote for the wrong candidate
This was probably as close as I will ever get to rigging an election. No more fun for me in the voter’s booth.
Today’s Cool Link: Are You Too Stupid to Surf?. I think this is a tongue-in-cheek discussion about the need to place minimum competency requirements on internet use. The point made though is that we all have to behave more responsibly. I agree.
