I Voted!

Below is my semi-live blog of the experience. Let us know how it went for you in comments!

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6:38 -- I arrive at my polling place to find the parking lot nearly full. I don't usually vote first thing, so I don't know if this is typical. Dear Husband, who almost always votes before work, says it's not. The white van with the Sarah! sticker is there. Yikes! I'm probably the 70th person in line.

More...

6:45 - Can't see the end of the line behind me now; it's wrapped around the building. Everyone is quiet. This is a heavily Republican precinct. A man in front of me jokes that he'll vote for whoever hands out free coffee. I wouldn't mind some coffee. My choice to wear shorts in anticipation of the 75° predicted high was not the best, in retrospect. Good thing I have a sweatshirt. And comfortable shoes. Prissy woke me up at 4:30 this morning; I hope Obama puts this away early tonight.

6:51 - I balance purse, book, and a tiny mirror and slap on some eye makeup. Need to look good for such a historic occasion. See a few people I know and wonder how they're voting. The guys in front of me discuss the virtues of SUVs and trucks.

6:58 - Will they open on time?

6:59 - Doors open! This has always been an efficient polling place; we'll see if it is today. I search the line and finally see one black face. I'm close to the door, but the poll workers are calling in different alphabetical groups to fill in the shorter lines. A man in front of me points out an 18-year-old voter in line behind us, remembering that the age requirement was still 21 when he was 18. A-C, N-R, and E-H go ahead of us, but the wait isn't long.

7:10 - I'm inside, about 10 back in the I-M line. There's a dad behind me explaining the process to his 6-year-old son, telling him that he'll get to vote in a presidential election in 12 years. Cool! My hands are shaking. Good thing I didn't have that coffee after all.

7:18 - I get my ballot and look for a place to mark it. Get a seat at a table and pull out my sample ballot. Can feel the people around me going, "Oh, shit, she's going to take forever." I'm so worried about spoiling the ballot. I carefully trace each oval and then fill it in completely with my black pen, trying to make sure I don't color outside the lines. I write in my pal John Crenshaw for Congress -- as usual, Bachus (R-of course) has no oppositon. I write in Dan Weinrib for county tax assessor as he should have been the Dem candidate. I even vote on all the ridiculous constitutional amendments we're forced to consider here in Alabama with our crappy, outmoded, Constitution...I try not to peek at my neighbor's votes, but just as I stand up, I see another ballot marked for Obama. Think about giving a total stranger a high five, decide it wouldn't be prudent.

7:24 - I'm done! My ballot is #98 on the optical scanner (the other one has a count in the 90s as well). I get my sticker and head outside. The line is much shorter now; the before-work rush is done. Now it's all over but the waiting.

I have my reservations about Obama. I definitely have my reservations about some of his internet supporters. He won't be perfect; he'll track too much to the middle for my taste. I don't know if he'll ever address the blatant, nasty sexism that was on display during the campaign. But at the same time, I'm awed by the experience of voting for the man who will likely be the first African-American president of the United States. It's chill-bump territory.

Swing Voter: Movie Fraud Perpetrates Fraud About Fraud

I got a little queasy when I read in a review of the new movie Swing Vote that a component of the plot is an act of voter fraud -- not the well-documented mass disenfranchisement at the hands of conservative operatives, voting-system vendors, and our antiquated system that has corrupted the last two presidential elections, but the largely apocryphal kind that involves unregistered/ineligible voters or false identification.

Hey, there are lots of movies made about things that almost never actually happen -- it's the fantasy business, right? There is almost certainly a higher incidence of people thinking they are Spiderman than the 0.000225% (nine possible, but never proven incidents out of 4 million votes cast) rate at which the conservatives' version of voter fraud happens. And yet those are the scenarios that the recent rush to pass voter ID laws is meant to prevent -- the actual result being the ultimate disenfranchisement of mostly Democratic voters.

I wouldn't care so much about the plot of some throwaway Kevin Costner vehicle, but America today finds itself in that strange little place at the intersection of "anecdote trumps statistical fact" and "life imitates art". I just hope this doesn't do for the voter ID card hysterics what Jack Bauer and 24 did for our torture policy.

Et Tu, Brute?

The WaPo had so much going on this morning I barely knew where to start. Lil Scotty Mclelland's article had 812 975 comments when I looked at it and I'm willing to bet that lots of **##'s got removed. A quick impression of the article reminds me of the story of Aron Ralston, the climber who cut off his own arm with a pocketknife to survive. Somebody's figured out there were war crimes and is doing their best to avoid being charged with one while at the same time trying to provide imaginary cover for those left behind. And Katrina was a costly blunder. No kidding.

While still smiling More... at the image of Lil Scotty realizing he had been had and hoping that he has a loyal security detail, I moved on to the right whining about how MSNBC is too left leaning and how they don't like Lil John McCain as much as they like Lil Obama, knowing full well that they had to turn their attention somewhere as soon as they got rid of Lil Hillary. Now that was a hatchet job, with several people wielding the hatchets. Sort of like the stories on John Edwards haircut. Designed to do nothing to further policy or decent political discussions and quite a lot to do with making sure that the candidate they were in love with had no viable competition. After enduring all these years of Fox News I have little to no sympathy for people who whine about the press.

But the Meyerson article, oh Mr. Meyerson, you raised my blood pressure so high, the first thing that I did was reach for my Fosinopril. Let me state first that Hillary was neither my first or second choice in the California primary, but neither one of them were still running, but their names were still on the ballot by the time it was our turn to vote. So, as is usual out here in California, we had to pick the lesser of two evils and it wasn't Obama. Sigh, I'm really tired non-choices like that. Anyway, back to your article.

Hillary's campaign ruined democracy and feminism? Are you serious?Blow it out your ass. Oops, I see you already did. The Democratic Party (they're in the Constitution where?) had no right to exclude the votes of the people of Florida and Michigan, no matter what time frame they held their election in, because they are citizens of the United States and deserve to have their votes counted. Period. And if Obama had won those states he wouldn't want those delegates seated? Get real.

The hypocrisy of anyone talking about Indiana's photo ID requirement in order to vote and then disregarding the votes of thousands of people in two other states is mind boggling. Not quite as mind boggling as accusing women of ruining democracy while you briefly mention the rampant sexism in the united campaign against Hillary and then you attack her supporters for complaining about it, but it's darned close. From start to finish, this race hasn't been about policy issues, it's been about hair, clothes and makeup. Throw in a little bowling and a shot of whiskey (if I was her I would have been so grateful to have had an excuse for a drink since the press hounded her almost as much as they do Paris or Britney neither one of which are anywhere near the same intelligence or contributions to society) with the guys and you have a campaign.

I'm a feminist because I'm a woman. I consider myself the equal of any man under normal circumstances. And the abnormal ones would be so abnormal that whatever sex you are will be one of the last things on your mind. While I may not be able to heave boulders due to brute strength (is that needed anymore?), I am quite capable of using a lever and gravity to accomplish the same task. The odds are that a man invented the hammer, the javelin and the sword, but a woman invented the wheel, pulley, lever and pivot. You develop what you need to survive. Or conquer, as the case may be.

Now that we're supposedly in the 21st century, the skills needed to survive are quite different since we don't have anything left to conquer except each other. And what a shame that is. Nowadays this can be done way too efficiently and requires no brute strength (and judging by reduced requirements to join the military, a minimum of intelligence) at all. Just because one is tall, short, white, brown, black, blue eyed, brown eyed, male, female, rich, poor, right handed, left handed, religious or nonreligious, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindi, Muslim, skinny, fat, young or old does not automatically infer competency, incompetency, superiority, stupidity or a tendency towards evil. To say that the women who support Clinton and want the delegates seated is to make a mockery of both democracy and feminism while showing a complete disregard for the people of the two states not being represented and a whopping display of misogyny because women are being so vocal about how their candidate got marginalized, all under the cloak of rules instead of common sense and compassion. But those are traits that come to people who think and who have spent more than enough time clinging to the bottom rung of the ladder to recognize when someone is stamping on their fingers and trying to make them fall off into nonexistence.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the only way we are ever going to have fair elections in this country is if we have a national primary, followed by the national elections thirty days later. Between television, radio and the internet people will have plenty of opportunity to explore their candidate and the press will have less of an opportunity to choose our candidates for us.

And that's what most of the press and Mr. Meyerson are really afraid of.

3Bs and Debsweb.

Vote Today (or Next Week or Next Month...)

I posted this at my place yesterday, with the title "Vote Tomorrow!" because Alabama is holding its primary today. Of course, there are quite a few still to come, and the conventional wisdom says that the Democratic nomination won't be decided today. So when Tom asked me to cross-post, I decided to do it. The historic nature of today's vote is just beginning to sink in. For the first time ever, a major party's nominee will -- not might -- be a woman or a person of color. That's chill bump territory.

Tomorrow Today is Super Tuesday, or maybe Super Duper Tuesday, or perhaps even Tsunami Tuesday, depending on which cable news network hype you hear. Whatever you call it, if you're registered to vote, go out and vote!

I'll be casting I cast my vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Democrats have had an embarrassment of riches when it comes to excellent Presidential candidates, and tomorrow I'm voting today I voted for the one I believe to be the better of two really good choices.

I'm supporting Hillary Clinton because I think she has the experience we need to get this country back on track after eight years of the Bush maladministration, which has broken down our government to the point that it's nearly beyond repair (think giving no-bid contracts to private businesses and then farming out the oversight to other private businesses). Someone has to pull what's left of it out of the bathtub and resuscitate it so it can function properly. We need a President with a substantial understanding of governance, and I believe Sen. Clinton has it. She's serving her second term in the Senate, and that's valuable, but I also consider her years as First Lady of Arkansas and then the US relevant. To my mind, those years count as meaningful experience when they were lived by a person who is as intelligent and interested in the process as she is and always has been.

Sen. Clinton has faced down attacks from right-wingers for years, all of them ugly and some of them outright deranged. (If any of you had the dubious pleasure of receiving a slew of email from the professional Hillary-hater who's been blanketing Alabama for the past few weeks, you know what I mean.) She doesn't back down, and she's still standing. I admire her strength and her courage, and I think they'll serve her well as the Democratic candidate and as President.

Cross-posted from Birmingham Blues. Well, mostly. I left off the part about the local County Commission race.

While I'm prepping for Cold Turkey Tuesday

I'm baking a tray of brownies to take with me to the polls tomorrow. I'll be going "cold turkey" on the blogs since I'll be working the polls from 6:30 am to about 10:00 pm. I thought I might write something about that experience here before I find out what tomorrow really turns out to be. I've done this once before, for a municipal election. It was a wonderful and wonky experience. The cambridge I live in, at least since I was a kid and went to public school, seems much more white and upper class than it is in reality. When you get involved with local politics, you start seeing another cambridge entirely and its very much a working class and non white world. Cambridge city hall and the cambridge election services really look multi-racial compared to the university world.

There are three levels of poll worker: the highest is "warden" then "clerk" and then "inspector." The "inspectors" were all older african amerian women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. Generally speaking it seems to be a job for retired people because it pays so badly, and it occupies such an odd stretch of time (a full tuesday two or three times a year at most?) that few people with a steady job could do it. They do this every election and they said they had refused to be bumped "up" to clerk or warden because now there's a lot of fussing to be done with computerized stuff--a computer for making the ballots large enough for poor eyesight and a computer that reads the paper ballots. When that stuff doesn't work its a huge headache. Plus if you are clerk or warden you have to stay to the bitter end and take the ballots to headquarters at 8:30-9:00 and then make your way home. Its a pretty brutal day. You get an unpaid hour off for "lunch" around ten in the morning and an hour off for "dinner" at 3:00--hence the brownies because we all got little dingy around four o'clock. The precinct where I work is on a busy street, in a senior citizens center, so all day long we get foot traffic from a dense residential area behind the precinct and also elderly men and women of all races wander down in their a) best clothes or b) pajamas to vote. I helped people in track suits and a ninty year old woman dolled up as though she was going to vegas. Its the most intimate experience you can imagine. Those inspectors seem to know everyone and everyone they know is greeted with cheers and hails of affection. The other election I worked the inspector ladies had the best time quizzing every (black) person who came in and asking them "was jesus a vegetarian?" This seemed like it was both a real question (one of the inspectors daughter's had brought up this theological question recently) and also like a kind of hysterical in joke, like "if Jesus were alive today, who do you think his favorite band would be?" On the other hand this precinct is actually the one I grew up in and I kept running into the parents of kids I'd gone to school with--old lefties and old professors.

It was a very hard day and we worked, and sometimes struggled, to make sure everyone got to vote and understood how to vote. I don't anticipate that it will be that hard tomorrow since at least its not Cambridge's proportional voting system but a straight up ballot. But its going to be hectic as tons of non regular voters turn out to vote and are puzzled by the procedure or are not correctly registered.

aimai

My Personal Guess? Obama

My personal guess is that its going to be Obama in a landslide. Why? Because two friends at brunch yesterday retailed every bit of silly anti Clinton "wisdom" that has ever tittle tattled off the screen quite uncritically and are voting for him and both my parents are voting for him too (staunch liberals, shrewd voters). Hell, even I'm voting for him. What that means is that lots of people are treating this primary as an "all things being equal" Obama has fewer negatives than Clinton so why *not* vote for him. The Obama people are out in force here--Cambridge, MA--and no sign of HRC and her supporters.

I don't think that this landslide, which I hope happens, bodes any good for the party or the general election. Because its based on the same weak calculations as the obama/mccain matchup for independents is. Because the people I'm talking to are making the same (stupid) calculation I'm making which is that every other voter is just as dumb as I am. So they attribute to every other voter the same vague unease about Clinton--"its just terrible the way she let Bill...do X" and "she's so divisive" is about the level of analysis. At the same time they are trying to align themselves with other voters to beat the hypothetical Republican nominee without realizing how very fragile their own analysis is. So they choose to vote for Obama because the Republicans have so shaped their view of Clinton that she's unelectable. And they don't really grasp how the media and the Republicans are going to shape their view of Obama and turn him into "unelectable" in a few months, too. Just look at what is happening to Bill Clinton's "statement" about "slowing down the economy." By the end of the primary season and the general Obama's uniter will have become "divisive" the fact that he "doesn't make republicans feel guilty" will have become "he's a raging LIEBERAL and he wants to impeach bush and cheney" and that wonderful racial healing that causes Republicans to say, starry eyed "he doesn't attack white people?" Why, we'll find out that he's nothing but the Black Panthers redux. And some not insignificant portion of the democrats will fall for it. Because if they haven't learned to distrust everything they hear on major news and read in major newspapers, they haven't learned anything in the last eight years.

Still, I'm incredibly excited. I took the "oath of office" yesterday to be a Clerk at our local primary and I have my 150 page booklet to read and I'll be at the Polls tomorrow from 6:30-9:00 or 10:00 trying to make sure that everyone gets to vote (Democrats, Republicans, Working Families, Green Rainbow and our own version of "declined to state" which is "Unenrolled" can all vote. But if those sneaky socialist party wannabes ask for ballots its no go). Its a historic primary and I can't wait to see how it turns out. We aren't allowed to say who has voted, or how they have voted, or do anything than other than point to the vote tallys on the machine all day. No talking politics--certainly no talking trash!--so pray for me.

aimai