Well, we got that out of the way.  Once we arrived at our polling place, the wait was 45 minutes before we got to the machine. Not bad for our cozy little county.   We were relieved to find that the machines had paper verification.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle before we got there, due to the report of a poll worker demanding photo ID from a voter.  That’s illegal here in Nevada. Now, we don’t know if they were trying to verify the voter in question due to them being one of the 200,000 some-odd voters recently purged from the Nevada voter rolls or not, but that’s still no reason for demanding an ID.  When the Dem HQ found out about it, they dispatched a team of lawyer/observers to the polling place.  Hopefully, this will be the last we hear about this. We’re hoping that it was just a case of a new poll worker making a mistake.

After voting, Miss Fish and I spend the rest of the day shuffling papers down at the Dem office.

Tags: Politics, voting

With the upcoming election on November 4th looming closer, it becomes feasible to think about an Obama/Biden White House.  Yes, Obama is correct in keeping the pressure up through the last minutes before the voting booths close at 7pm; however, I have allowed some selfish thoughts and reactions to their possible success.  My first response would be relief followed by gut wrenching fear.  Personally, voting for the victor has rarely been my experience.  Am I ready for the looming sense of responsibility that comes with voting for the winner?

My vote this November 4th is in support of intellectual thoughtfulness, common-sense American values (not those of gun-waving, fear-mongering, “exceptionalism”–sorry Joe six pack) and a renewed sense of humility as a country.   As a lifelong registered independent (not to be confused with the current fascination of “undecided” voters called independents) my voting past has an eclectic record of republican, democrat, and throwaway, third party, yet principled votes.   Reality check; can any candidate or party really make a difference?  Is the mass of our Government such that inertia prevents change?  Realism or perhaps cynicism allows for the possibility continuation of the current status-quo.   But what the heck, for now there is hope…..GO OBAMA!

Tags: November election, Politics

There’s a rash of vandalism of people’s Obama yard signs in our county. Some are knocked down, some are destroyed, while others simply disappear.  There are big 4×8 roadside Obama signs that have also been vandalized: some are cut down, others are shredded into pieces, and others have holes knocked through them. I thought that these instances were more annoying than ominous until I read this unnerving NYT piece concerning the Canadian election.

These are Canadians! My visions of a kinder, politer civilization to the far north has been shattered. Well, Canada does border on Alaska.

Like the occurrences in our neck of the woods, I suspect that these occurrences aren’t the result of an orchestrated effort by the opposition. However, even if it is only a handful of random extremists with serious issues, it smears the entire opposition with the same slimy brush.  What I really don’t like is the inflammatory demagoguery currently gushing out of the McCain campaign and its media surrogates. When one’s supporters are incensed and enraged enough to scream for the death of one’s opponent, it’s only a small step to act out that rage and destroy property, violate others’ rights to the freedom of political speech, and, gods forbid, even harm or kill another person.

These people in the Republican campaigns and their media mouthpieces should recall the fate of Julius Streicher at the Nuremberg Trials. (Yeah, OK, it’s a Godwin’s Law moment)  There are legal precedents that equate violent rhetoric with the actual crimes themselves. Whipping the rabble into a murderous frenzy is a desperate ploy that can easily backfire on the Republicans. I hope to god nothing severe enough happens to warrant a formal, Nuremberg-like investigation; I hope that it’s just limited to missing yard signs.

BTW-Take a look at the incongruously-neat penmanship on the graffiti pictured in the referenced NYT article; it’s good to know that a quality education is serving that vandal well </snark>

Tags: crime, Politics, signs

The Obama campaign is at full throttle here in western Nevada. The powers-that-be say that if Obama captures Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno), he has Nevada’s electoral votes in the bag. Down here in Douglas County, it’s not as important, but there are several thousand potential votes up for grabs. The presence of a strong religious and NRA culture means a constant uphill battle for anyone proclaiming any sort of liberal leanings. We liberals have to have a secret handshake and code words. Thanks to all the focused campaign efforts, we are starting to realize with some sense of relief that we’re not alone.

Here in Nevada, we’ve built an entire civilization around the celebration of cardinal sins. We are a proud state constructed on the premise of gold, silver, booze, hookers and gambling.  To hear the conservative base go at it on the national stage, you’d think that all Nevada would be wall-to-wall, sinnin’, Godless liberals. I suspect that most of the conservatives and Republicans here are actually covert, conservative Independents and Libertarians. If there’s one thing that Nevadans prize above all, it’s that we deeply value our independence and our freedom from interference. Sure, we all just love us some family values…just leave our gambling and Bunny Ranch Girls alone.

Since there are only a relative handful of Democrats, libruls, and progressive independents here, California kindly donated a few hundred people to do the legwork on the canvassing drives. This poses a logistical problem in that we have a temporary, but large, increase in population with only so many hotel rooms in the area.

So, Miss Fish and I offered to provide lodging to the incoming volunteers. We’ve got a very nice campaign worker from the San Francisco area who is staying in our guest room for a month. Last week, we had a couple living in a camper in our driveway.

This isn’t as disruptive as it sounds as we like having the company. However, since the campaign runs from sunup to well after midnight, we still have the house mostly to ourselves. Unfortunatey, there really isn’t any opportunity for us to demonstrate our mad B & B hosting skillz.

We’re also spending time at the campaign headquarters in our town, calling our neighbors on the phone, knocking on doors, and entering mountains of data.  Last week, Miss Fish baked a cobbler using home-grown pears and brought it in to the young, full-time staff. It was perfection in a pie tin. The crust was perfectly caramelized, and the pale golden filling was an exquisite blend of sweet and tart. Miss Fish has attained “goddess” status and has rightfully taken her place in the pantheon amongst those kind people who feed college students for free.

It actually feels pretty good to be doing something more than simply voting.

Tags: Politics, volunteerism