Got to my precinct's polling place in Reston, Virginia about 1:30-ish this afternoon to see very few voters present. But this isn't surprising midday in Virginia's oddly traditional off-year election for governor.
What was surprising was that here in hi-tech Fairfax County, they've gone, at least in this election, back to the old paper ballots--which I haven't seen in this county since I moved here from Leesburg, VA in 1980 to the best of my recollection. As I recall, there was some bitching about the computers last time. But in point of fact, in a county that, alas, has been in the control of the Dems for at least a decade now, I have to be suspicious, as my friends on the left side of the aisle know how to mess with paper ballots if given half a chance.
The ballots were a little like an SAT test--you had to color in the oval of your candidate completely. You also then had to flip to the back to vote on a school bond referendum, something I suspect many voters will actually neglect to do, allowing the bond issue to slip through and get approved--although this county routinely and unquestioningly votes in favor of school bond issues all the time, giving the bureaucrats a blank check to increase their own salaries.
Irritatingly, although each ballot was provided in a plain manilla folder, you had to take it out of the folder and give it to a poll worker--no doubt a Democrat--to place in something that looked an awful lot like a paper shredder. My ballot slipped right into the machine--presumably a security device--and the poll worker had ample opportunity to look at how I marked it, although he was discreet. I don't like this at all as it violates, at least for me, the secrecy of the ballot, at least marginally.
Looks like the Republican slate will win easily this evening, thank goodness. Although my own precinct will probably go to the Dems as it has always done in recent history. So it goes. But for once, I can at least look forward to a decent outcome.
2 comments:
Sadly, money initiatives, such as TABOR in Maine, and I-1103 in Washington State, failed miserably. We need a Howard Jarvis, Jr., and a new national leadership on the right. The embarrassing behavior of Newt in the 23rd CD of NYS suggests he not be a part of this.
Obaloney
Dear A,
Right you are. The Newtster seems to be falling into the age old patter that goes like this. You're a stalwart Conservative Republican. You've spent many years being one, have one political office, and have become nationally prominent. Mostly, however, as an irritating Conservative Neanderthal routinely dissed by your lefty peers and reviled by the MSM, who, of course, are all in the tank for your opposition.
One day, for whatever reason, your principals actually and unpredictably cause you to agree, probably on a single, minor issue, with your antagonists. You even vote for the companion legislation. Next morning, what to your wondering eyes doth appear? Above the fold headlines praising your "stunning" vote. Editorials highlighting the "strange new respect" you've won.
Cool. You start getting invited to parties. You do an interview on MSNBC where you are treated respectfully. Doors open. You are now invited to the best parties. Movie stars actually drop in on you. Is this great, or what?
Starved, basically, for any semblance of human or political respect for most of your political life, you're suddenly caught up in the results of the strange new respect. And so, you do what everyone else eventually does. You go along to get along. The hell with principles. What did they ever do for you?
The most irritating recent examples of this, besides Newt, are the constantly exasperating David Gergen. Peggy Noonan, whom I once respected, is yet another, joining her New York pals in writing vile and untruthful things last fall about Sarah Palin. (Peggy, like a lot of rich New Yorkers, has apparently seen the error of her ways recently.)
The also-reviled Ayn Rand charted this phenomenon in nauseating detail in "Atlas Shrugged." It's just easier in life to be a suck up. I never thought the Newtster would do it, but his recent behavior is making me think otherwise.
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