It’s not often you get the chance to vote for a convicted felon, so I didn’t pass up my opportunity and voted today for Al Hanson. You get ample opportunity to vote for people who will go on to commit felonies, some of whom will be convicted later, but in this case it was all out of sequence so I got to vote for somebody after they had already been convicted and paid their debt to society. Amazingly enough, neither the Kansas City Star or the St. Louis Post Dispatch bothered to point out Mr. Hanson’s felony record until after he won the Republican primary, but afterwards they were all over the story.
After that I followed a simple procedure – vote Republican in competitive elections (e.g. Jim Talent), Libertarian in laughers (e.g. Darla Maloney AKA somebody other than Todd Akin who’s going to win) – I’ve voted for so many who’ve lost over the years I kind of enjoy it now, nobody if it was an unopposed Democrat (e.g. Robert McCulloch, who I won’t vote for because in Kinkogate he signed off on a search warrant of Kinko’s to catch somebody who sent a non-threatening but wistle blowing fax), against judges if I didn’t know anything about them or didn’t like the sound of their name (as good a system as any IMHO), against taxes, and against changes to the Missouri Constitution except for St. Louis Home Rule (I figure any change has to be for the better).
I’m one of those people who know how I’m going to vote before I even leave for the polling place – heck, my mind is pretty much already made up for the 2004 elections already and I don’t even know who’s running or what the amendments and propositions are. I’m generally not swayed by personality or advertising. Last election when MSNBC kept following a focus group of undecideds who couldn’t make up their minds until apparently they were in the voting booth, I thought they were out of their minds. I would shout at the TV, “If you can’t tell the difference between Bush and Gore, stay home you idiots!” So contrary to the get out the vote message you’ll be bombarded with, my message is if you’re not sure, don’t vote.
I won’t be glued to the TV watching the returns tonight if only because I have Cub Scout Roundtable and so will be otherwise constructively engaged. But I’m sure I’ll pay close attention to the 10 O’Clock news and pore over the paper in the morning. It’s my duty as a citizen, after all.
