....and if you've done your homework, so should you.
Personally, given the stakes associated with control
of the Senate, I can't imagine how anybody could *not*
vote if you live in a State like South Dakota,
Missouri, Colorado, Louisianna, New Hampshire,
Minnesota, or Arkansas.
Anyhow, for those of you interested, I voted in 11
partisan races, and plumped for 7 Republicans, 1
Democrat, 1 Green (who, by the way, many people are
predicting will pull off the upset and become my
representative in the State Legislature), and None of
the Above (write-in of a non-candidate) in the
remaining two.
I must say that voting in a State that trends as
left-wing as Maryland, and indeed, voting in Takoma
Park which is one of the most left-wing areas of
Maryland, can be difficult. For example, the only
candidate endorsed by "Maryland Right-to-Life" in any
race that I was voting for was Bob Ehrlich (R) for
Governor, and Ehrlich is running ads that insist that
he supports a woman's right to choose! He got the
endorsement, however, because Kennedy-Townsend (D)
never met an abortion she didn't like, and because
Ehrlich supports parental notification for minors who
want an abortion, opposes using taxpayer dollars for
abortion, and most importantly for me, Ehrlich
supports a "conscience clause" - that would prevent
the State of Maryland from requiring doctors, nurses,
and hospitals that are morally opposed to abortion
from being required to assist with or perform an
abortion by the State. I am continually flabbergasted
that *any* American could believe that a doctor,
nurse, or hospital that considers abortion to be
murder should be required by the State to perform one
anyways!
The other huge difficult with my votes this year is
that I am opposed to building the "Inter-County
Connector", a new superhighway that is being proposed.
As an economist, I know that the evidence from the
experience of other cities is that building
"duplicative highways" like the ICC usually does
little-to-nothing to reduce congestion. Rather,
people simply take advantage of the additional roads
to live even further from the cities than they already
do. The only proven way to alleviate congestion is to
invest the money into mass-transit, such that the
critical mass of transit destinations and transit
frequency makes the mass transit a truly viable
alternative to roads for consumers who want to travel
exactly where they want to go exactly when they want
to go. Unfortunately, a solid majority of Marylanders
seem to be in favor of plunging billions of dollars
into the highway. For example, I briefly considered
voting for Townsend when Ehrlich began running ads
emphasizing how committed he was to building the ICC -
until the next week Townsend coutered with an ad
accusing Ehrlich of distorting her record, since she
supports building the ICC too. So, with the ICC off
the table for the governor's race, and with the Green
Party (unfortunately) not running a candidate for
governor, and with Ehrlich not quite as pro-choice as
I had first thought that he was, I ended up going with
him. Besides which, I don't want to see
Kennedy-Townsend become Governor and then be running
for Vice-President in 2004 or 2008. Still, this
then finally convinced me to balance my ticket and
vote for the aptly-named Linda Schade of the Green
Party for State Delegate, since she's the only State
Delegate candidate opposing both the ICC and corporate
welfare.
For County Executive, I took the Democrat since the
Democrat is in favor of "building the Metro
Inner-Purple Line and the ICC" and the Republican is
in favor of "building the ICC and the Purple Line." I
figure that if everyone is going to support building
this dumb highway, then at least the one who is lising
Metro first in his campaign platform might be a bit
more willing to ensure that the transit gets built
too. Given how hard it is to find *anything* out
about candidates in these very local races, sometimes
you just have to make your vote on as little details
as that. I'd like to think, though, that somehow
there could be a better way for interested voters to
find out some actual serious positions of candidates
in these local races.
One of the most difficult non-partisan races to vote
in every year is for the school board, since nobody
really seems to have much in the way of issues.
Fortuantely, I've developed a fairly effective system
of just searching out the person from the teacher's
unions who is electioneering at the polling place and
just voting against whomever is on the flyer that that
person is handing out. :)
Lastly, we had seven candidates for circuit court
judge, six incumbents and one challenger (apparently
he's the first challenger for judgeship to even
qualify for the ballot in decades). Fortunately, the
challenger is making a big deal about the fact that he
is the only candidate endorsed by the (rabidly
pro-abortion) National Organization for Women, so that
made my six votes easier.
Anyhow, can't wait to get home tonight and watch the
returns roll-in. One of my best friends at the office
is a very liberal Democrat, and lives down the street
from me, so we voted together this morning, and we'll
be having a little election party tonight.
JDG
=====
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"First... to clarify what we stand for: the United States must defend liberty and
justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. No
nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them."
-US National Security Strategy 2002
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
