It doesn’t take long to pick between a good candidate and a poor one. The Flyers I receive in the mail – hell, even the information mailing I get on the initiatives and referendums – present a single side. At least the information mailing points out that the commenter on both sides are biased.
The ballot requires less effort now – time was when you could write in Mickey Mouse instead of an unopposed a****le – but in a rare act of bipartisanship, our state senators and representatives repealed that act. Damn near unanimously. I suppose it hurts political feelings to see the vote report showing that people prefer Disney characters – but that’s a downright poor reason to reduce voter options.
So now, I have a full line of unopposed courthouse crowd incumbents that offer me a place to vote for them, but not against them. I’m ready to support an initiative that gives voters back some influence – something like “If a candidate is both incumbent and unopposed, voters will have the option of voting for the candidate or voting to send him or her home.”
It was an interesting ballot – so near as I understand the Senate race, Republican Alme has it wired, the Democrat candidate lacks Democrat support, the Independent has the Dem support, and we at least have a Libertarian choice.
For Representative we have a Libertarian whom I know little of except his name, a Republican talk show host, and a Dem who was student body president at UM and jumped out of perfectly good airplanes to get to a fire. If I didn’t think Democratic control of the House has panned out short weight in the past, I’d probably vote that way.
A pair of Libbyans are competing for state senate in Helena. One looks like an annoyed muskrat, the other doesn’t. The Republican voted to take out our ability to write in candidate for unopposed candidates, and so near as I can tell, the Dem didn’t. He might not make it, but his voting record (none) is better than his opponent’s.
For State Representative, we have a Republican candidate from Fortine who seems to be pretty well qualified, and Dakota Adams – now from Eureka as a Dem. I’m probably ideologically closer to the Republican – but Dakota is a former Trego kid, and caucusing with the minority couldn’t do much harm, even if his politics don’t align with mine.
And the political flyers keep showing up in my mailbox.
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