February 2008

I early-voted last week in the primaries. This is the first time I have ever voted in a primary, and it’s also the first election in which I have ever donated money to a political candidate. I guess that this time around, I feel that there is so much at stake and our current embarrassment of a president has run this country so far into the ground, that we have a huge opportunity to make changes. I’d say “it can’t get much worse, right?” but then I think back to Orwell’s “1984” and realize that, while we’re getting closer and closer every day to that kind of reality, it’s not entirely here yet. However, Dubya has another 329 days in office (and counting!) and I’m fairly certain he’s going to do a lot more damage before he’s booted out of the Oval Office. I have never wanted to vote in a primary election before because doing so would officially register me as a Democrat, and I have never wished to declare an official affiliation with a major political party. After all, I have voted for third-party candidates plenty of times, and will continue to do so as I see fit. But I like what Barack Obama has to say, and I definitely would prefer to see him in office over Hillary Clinton. Don’t get me wrong; I’ll vote for whichever one of them wins the Democratic primary, but his ideas inspired me to donate to his campaign. Anyway, when I went to vote, the lady at the computer asked me which party I wanted to vote in, and slowly and methodically entered my information from my voter card. I don’t think she liked computers very much. She completed and printed out my paperwork and very carefully instructed me to first […]