Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Ohio Primary

Today, I voted in a primary election for the first time since my senior year in high school (1988--yes, I proudly voted for Dukakis). This isn't because I'm politically unaware. I've voted in every even-year general election since then. The problem is that the odd years usually feature obscure races and issues. They're so obscure, in fact, that I'm lucky to even know what's on the ballot in those years. It turns out that the same holds true for primary elections in even-numbered non-presidential years.

Actually, the most notable thing about the ballot was how few contested races were on it. It was six computer screens long, and most of the races featured one candidate running unopposed or no candidate at all (presumably races the party had conceded to Republicans). In the major contested race, for U.S. senator, I voted for Jennifer Brunner, mostly because Lee Fisher strikes me as incompetent. The biggest thing I remember about the local primary coverage is this non-sequitur from the Dayton Daily News

Despite Fisher’s efforts, DHL pulled out of Wilmington and jilted 8,000 workers. Fisher calls it “the greatest tragedy of this recession.”

The central message in Fisher’s campaign is jobs. His TV ad says it, his campaign literature says it, and Fisher says it in nearly every campaign appearance as he touts his two years as state development director and his continuing work on economic development for Ohio.
That's right, this guy is soliciting donations as the jobs candidate by highlighting a huge failure to save jobs. Since there's no competence advantage for Fisher, I figured I might as well vote for the person who seems to have her heart in the right place. Not that it did any good. It looks like Fisher has won by around 54%-46%. In any case, I still have to vote for Fisher in the Fall to keep W's former OMB director out of the Senate.

I also voted in favor of renewing the Third Frontier program. Not only is investing in technology good for the economy, but it could also be good for my own career prospects as an aspiring technical writer. Selfishness and altruism actually converge in this case, so it was an easy decision.

Finally, I voted in favor of relocating the Columbus casino approved in the gambling initiative last Fall. I was tempted to vote against it and leave them stuck with the old location just to teach politicians a lesson about writing such detailed proposals into the state constitution, but I thought better of it.

No comments:

Post a Comment