September 2006

Today we voted.  Primaries you know.  Now that I have voted, I’m going to rant just a little bit.  Oh wait, I need to remind Christopher to go and vote – hang on, I’ll be right back.  OK he’s heading off to vote.

My first Florida primary voting issue is with the Republicans and the conservative special interest groups.  They call here too darn often.  By the end of last week I was no longer willing to answer the phone if the caller ID did not indicate someone I knew was calling. I didn’t get any calls from Democrats or liberal special interest groups. Or maybe they just called after I got fed up with the conservatives and stopped answering the phone. Whatever.   

The other problem with these groups is that they don’t always make it clear who it is they want you to vote for or don’t want you to vote for.  Here’s an example…

The phone rings and the nice woman’s voice tells me that candidate ____ says he is a Jeb Bush style Republican but he isn’t really.  (I immediately wonder if this is good or bad, from my point of view or theirs.  Do they like Jeb? Or do tney not like Jeb?  Not all Republicans like him, you know.)  She begins to explain why he isn’t like Jeb and it becomes clear that she does like Jeb after all so this guy maybe is not who they want me to vote for (Or TW actually since she is the Republican in the house).  But then, one of their reasons is because a very large gay and lesbian family group is supporting character ____.  (Hmmm, maybe they do want TW to vote for him after all since TW is a lesbian parent and a Republican.)  Oh wait, she says "Florida deserves better"… (Better than what? Jeb Bush? Candidate ____?)  At no time did they suggest another candidate.  This seemed to be a just don’t vote for ______ phone call. 

To make matters worse, TW investigates Candidate ____ and sees no reason why a gay/lesbian parenting group might support him.  She’s not always aligned with gay/lesbian parenting groups but there’s nothing there that indicates he is even remotely supportive of gay folks.  Weird.  The phone call indicated otherwise.

If that wasn’t annoying enough, there’s the woman running for governor and her only agenda seems to be to ditch the FCAT.  Umm hello, I’m anti-FCAT but you do realize as governor you might have to address other issues, right?  What might your position on those issues be?  What a waste of my time to even bother to research the woman. 

OK enough of that, I was all ready to cast my vote when I discovered my polling spot had been moved!  It hadn’t moved to a completely different place, thank goodness.  I was still to vote at the church around the corner but now I had to vote in a different BUILDING and of course I pulled into the parking lot on the wrong side.  The side where all of the campaign signs were and where the campaign sign holding woman was standing.  Geez.  Could you have moved the signs to the proper entrance? 

At least I got an "I Voted" sticker.  They sometimes run out of them and that really annoys me.  I want my sticker.