While I may lean Republican if only given two choices, I’m not a party loyalist and have voted all across the board…sometimes neither option is good and having a third (or fourth or fifth) party is great. Sure, some will argue that you’re “throwing away” your vote, but I say that’s b.s. since at least I made an effort to vote unlike the apathetic people who don’t exercise the right so many have died to defend. Don’t get me started…if you don’t vote, don’t open your mouth to complain about our representatives or “the system”. Better yet, pack up your bags and move to some politically oppressed foreign land for a while to see how you like that.

Anyway, to today…

Here in Indiana you have to declare Democrat or Republican for primaries. For most of the state the only races that really mattered were Democratic. So guess what? An estimated 80% of voters in a traditionally Republican state declared Democratic.

For my area, that got us a trifecta of Democratic opponents for the fall…President (which hasn’t happened in my lifetime), Governor (many Democrats AND Republicans can’t stand our current Governor, myself included) and Congressman (or woman).

For President it seems that around here most Republicans would rather see Hillary win for at least one of three reasons. 1) She has a better chance of losing to McCain. 2) The other guy talks but doesn’t really say anything. 3) For some reason the thought of the other guy running the country seems downright scary and just asking for trouble.

Honestly, when it comes to the fall elections I’m not sure I could vote for either of those three. And there’s one candidate that there’s no way in the world I’d vote for. At this point I’m just hoping that the Democratic Party and Republican Party ditch all three candidates and run a joint Al Gore/Dan Quayle campaign. Can you imagine how much fun those four years would be? I mean come one, wouldn’t it be nice to find out that those two invented democracy? I guarantee that CSPAN would be the highest rated television station four years running. If we can’t pull that ticket off, Tony Dungy might get my vote as a write-in…in all honesty I’d vote for Tony if he were to ever run.

For the Indiana Governor’s race, I’ll be voting for someone other than the Republican incumbent. The man cut funding for my old job (sure, that turned out great for me and drove home the fact that no job is “secure”, but it still irritated me a bit at the time and put a lot of other people out of work too) and sold one of our roads (he’ll say it’s a “lease”…a lease that will be around beyond my lifetime and probably my kids’ lifetimes). All of the other dumb moves he’s made don’t even need to be considered for me personally. He’s not my man.

For our congressman, well, that’s a tough nut to crack and I have never voted for the person who holds that office. But I keep voting, so maybe one day.

Anyway, there was actually a candidate called “Hippie Joe” who’s a neo-Nazi bartender who was running for the Democratic nod. Seriously, this guy had to sneak in (for a second time) somehow. My guess is that he’s too radical even for the third parties and snuck in as a Democrat. Our district has a huge population of black voters, so it’s no wonder I never even heard of this guy before looking at the ballot (I grabbed the Republican one two years ago)…man, that’d go over well and I’d love to see that debate…the (barely) incumbent Muslim, a few Christians and the neo-Nazi discussing their thoughts on the war in Iraq and terrorism. That might get ugly in a hurry.  [Just to clarify, I wish there wasn't a neo-Nazi running at all for people to accidentally vote for and wish there wasn't such a group in existence...but the oddness of it strikes me as, well, odd.]

So there are my voting rants for the day. I’m not a fan of political arguments and find them pointless since the issues are key and I find the idea of only two “major” parties silly, but feel free to flame away.

* Thank you Andrew Jackson! For those of you who don’t know, “the now-famous Democratic donkey was first associated with Democrat Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign. His opponents called him a jackass (a donkey), and Jackson decided to use the image of the strong-willed animal on his campaign posters.” – FactMonster, Wikipedia and many more

While I’m not overly interested in politics in it’s current state (it is what it is), please humor me as I ramble off some thoughts about the 2007 Indianapolis Mayoral Election…

VOTER TURNOUT

For this “off year” election we had roughly 25% of registered voters turn out to vote.  They say that’s an average turn-out, but to me that seems kind of disappointing, especially since the vast majority of Indianapolis is registered to vote.  (Over 75% of the total population is registered to vote, and note that the total population includes children and people who don’t have voting rights.  So my guess is that of the people who have the right to vote, probably at least 90% or more of them are registered to do so.)

Anyway, it’s not as if it’s difficult to vote and in other countries people would love to have a say in who their governing officials are. My stance is that if you don’t vote and don’t have a really good reason for not doing so, you shouldn’t be allowed to complain about the government.  Wouldn’t that be like an atheist complaining about “acts of God”?

POLITICAL TERMS

Am I alone in thinking that there should be an eight year term to just about every elected office (or at the very least, eight consecutive years with a four year break)? Beyond that you can fall into “career politician” land and I can’t see how you can truly remain connected with the “real world” without living there for a while. Sure, a career politician might be the best candidate for the job, but it just seems like it would be too easy to start to think of it as a career and to begin serving your own interests instead of serving the interest of the public. This is across the board, regardless of party affiliation.

POLITICAL PARTIES

Man would I love it if our political system truly allowed for 3 or 4 true candidates/parties for each election.  Sure, they’re there as a gesture, but it’s very rare that they come into play except for “stealing” votes from one or the other main party candidates.  And that’s just tragic.

BART PETERSON

I’ll give Bart Peterson credit in that he did make some major changes while he was in office. While I don’t agree with some of them, it is good that he has something to show for his time in office (good or bad).

When it comes to the campaign, Bart was a ringer as far as all of the political pundits were concerned. From what I saw this was solely based on the campaign funding differences, which is just plain silly in my opinion. I heard the “experts” say that 95% of the time campaign contributions is what an election comes down to. But I think they missed the fact that this wasn’t a normal election. Money came into play BIG TIME, but not within their usual evaluation box. And I think that the Peterson campaign caught onto that a little too late.

The obvious major blow to Bart’s bid for reelection was the whole mess surrounding the police merger which was supposed to save us $40M but ended up costing more money, thus lead to a tax increase in order to cover the payroll. When you consider that along with the fact of the whole property tax fiasco AND the recent sales tax increase to fund the new stadium, there are a whole lot of people not too happy. Even though the other tax items can’t be solely placed on Bart’s shoulders, it is messing with people’s money and people don’t like that.

Other than that, I think the decision maker for anyone wavering one way or the other (or towards the other Peterson in the race) was the negative ads that were put out over the final week of the election. This was a clean election up until that point and these ads just made my skin crawl (I’ll spare you that tirade). I can tell you that if I had been wavering at all, this would have sealed the “no vote” for me.

GREG BALLARD

While I can’t honestly say whether or not Greg Ballard will be a better Mayor of Indianapolis than Bart Peterson was/is, I will say that I’m happy to see some fresh blood in there.  And if people don’t like the job that he’s done in his first term, they can go to the polls in four years and make their statement.  But I plan on giving him the time to prove himself either way, as change does take a little time.  (But please, oh, please…I’m begging here…we don’t want another commando around like our current governor…and I’ll spare you that tirade as well, as I really don’t have the time to go down that road.)

I really love the fact that Greg Ballard won the election on a such a small budget AND that he’s a political unknown. And dare I mention that he really ran his campaign as an Independent Republican?  These things have that entrepreneurial flare that just lights my fire.  It’s like rooting for the underdog and I dig that.

Back in the spring I would have told you that you were nuts if you thought someone would beat Bart Peterson in the fall election, even with the police merger stuff going on. Carl Brizzi declined to go for the Republican nomination and the Republicans didn’t have a number two guy that they were backing, so the party basically just threw in the towel (until the very last minute when they saw that Greg Ballard actually had a chance). For reasons I won’t go into, I honestly don’t think Carl Brizzi would have beaten Bart Peterson though. And I’m sure the third choice would have gained enough votes to be the difference maker.

But anyway, congratulations go out to Greg Ballard on his Mayoral victory.  I’m looking forward to finding out more about him and seeing what his big picture for the city looks like.

We’ll regroup during the off season and begin putting together a stronger campaign for our next opportunity. Who knows, maybe next time we’ll give people a whole week of notice and jump through the legal hoops in order to obtain campaign funds for cool stuff like buttons, flyers and billboards with my picture plastered all over them (and who wouldn’t want to look at that!?).

Being typically apolitical and not really liking to talk about politics, I will say that I have always voted against Julia Carson and am hoping that maybe this is “the year” that she gets voted out. (Jeff & I talked about her on the latest podcast, so check that out for some funny commentary.) I am always baffled how it is that she keeps getting reelected when she hasn’t done anything worthwhile and the words that come out of her mouth make no sense at all (we have DST now, so I have no idea what her campaign was this year beyond “We heart Julia”). But hey, a lot of things in this town don’t make a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, I am now announcing my candidacy for the 2006 offices of Indiana Secretary of State*, U.S. Senate & U.S. Representative District 7.

Yes, I know that the polls are now closed and it is a little late to be launching a campaign, but due to the lack of funding I think “our” campaigns were pretty good and they were definitely the cleanest campaigns. Also, by announcing myself as a late entry I’ve avoided the possibility of anyone digging up any “dirt” on me. (Heaven forbid that someone found out that I actually enjoy the occasional Pauly Shore flick.)

No, I don’t know if you can actually run for three offices at once (who has the time to check on that sort of thing anyway?). But aren’t my chances much better by spreading things out a bit? If it does turn out to be possible I have no problem serving in both the U.S. House & the U.S. Senate simultaneously.

The early results are starting to come in, so now we’ll wait and see how things shake out. Word has it that I have at least a few write-in votes.

* I already have my framed “Honorary Indiana Secretary of State” certificate circa 1995, so why not go for the real deal? Ah, to be an “intern” again…I have fond memories of the weekly intern meeting with the Secretary of State and being required to eat the doughnuts bought for us. Thanks for the memories Sue Ann!