Please permit me to comment on the election currently being conducted.
As stated in previous letters, I am generally more interested in U.S. House and U.S. Senate races. I was so inspired and motivated by a football player and a retired anti-submarine warfare officer/pilot/survival school instructor running for U.S. Senate and 8th District Congress respectively that I filed for and was recently elected to a precinct committee officer position. Unfortunately, whether by fair means or foul, neither of these gentlemen were allowed to advance to the November ballot.
As a PCO, the party expects me to campaign for the current nominees; however, I refuse to lie for them and tell voters how warm, fuzzy, and oh so good they are.
In the U.S. Senate race it seems that we have two progressives going through the motions of beating on each other for doing and saying the same thing, and my side for whatever reason is trying to send a much too mild-mannered real estate magnate who owns a bank to straighten things out. Yeah, good luck with that.
I implored our current Congressman not to run again. I personally feel that he is too independent, ineffective, indefensible and beyond redemption. Since I find voting for an avowed Democrat thoroughly unpalatable and don’t want to hold my nose voting for candidates that I find unworthy of their party designation, I am inclined to write in the names and party designation of the candidates I voted for in the primary election and hope that enough voters are similarly inclined so as to have some discernible impact on election results.
In the state level races, I’ll trust the numerous yard signs in my precinct and district endorsing the school board member rather than the better-funded career politician attempting to hippity hop from office to office due to term limits.
Our other state representative seems to have the same political disease as our federal candidates. (“Independent Democrat”) but doesn’t seem to have any serious opposition. I’ll vote for his opponent solely out of party loyalty.
Our state senator is one of the few politicians who can be relied on to stay on her side of the aisle and vote accordingly.
Her caucus ouster problems, etc., say more about the pathetic, watered down, moderate, weak-kneed, spineless condition of the state party officials than it says about her. I think that she should be returned to office and if possible be elevated to minority or majority leader, depending on the outcome of the election.
Josef Stalin was quoted as saying “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” Our polling places have been eliminated and we are given approximately three weeks to mail in a ballot. I sincerely hope that enough people can take time out of their 9.6 percent unemployed/underemployed lives and expend enough effort to go through the motions of voting and give the election results some semblance of credibility.
Edward D. Neil
Enumclaw
