Elementary Electrickery

[from 10/21/09]

I'm supposed to write about the election here. That's what everyone is expecting. They want me to tell you all in amusing ways how you should vote, or make penetrating observations about the process. For example I could discuss the way our modern local primary-to-general election system evolved naturally from the "One potato, two potato" system.

When it comes to candidates I am hampered by an impaired ability to decide between suits. I have what's-the-diff disorder. In 1960 I was only 11 years old, so voting was out of the question. But my 5th grade teacher, to teach civics better, encouraged us all to take sides in the presidential election. I couldn't decide. We had to make placards expressing our choices. I made one promoting Kennedy on one side and Nixon on the other. I was laughed at, and to this day I can't learn civics.

In hindsight, I'm well aware that, had Nixon become our 35th president instead of Kennedy, the past 49 years would have been utterly different. Nixon would have been assassinated in 1963 and remembered as a potentially great president whose career was ended too soon. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., would have ascended to the presidency, secured a major civil rights bill ending segregation, but then would have become unpopular because of deepening involvement in Indochina, AKA "Lodge's War." So Lodge would not seek office in '68 and Kennedy would have run again and won. Kennedy would go on to extricate us from Vietnam, only to be brought down in a second term by a scandal involving the CIA, burglars, Marilyn Monroe, and pain killers, events which would have coincided with the invention of disco. Only, they wouldn't have called it disco, they would have called it paddy-whack, and it still would have sucked.

The problem is, when you vote for a candidate, you don't have all the cards turned up. You know what the candidates say they'll do about what's going on now, but you don't know what they'll do about something down the road and around the bend. Also, you're not voting based on one issue. You have to consider the whole range of ways each candidate could screw us up. This doesn't seem to bother other people like it does me.

Whereas, with ballot referenda and initiatives, it's all laid out in plain view, in tiny legalese in my voters pamphlet. Each addresses only one issue or would authorize only one action. "Shall all the shoes of all of our knights' horses be properly nailed on?" You can easily see the consequences of each choice, by using elementary scientific predictive powers. There are possibilities to do arithmetic, or to appear to do it, for effect. You don't need to have done a Psych graduate thesis "On the Impacts of Narcissistic Personalities in Modern Politics."

So, with my remaining space, I will now weigh in on the election issues.

Your Yes vote on Referendum 71 is needed in order to retain Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688 as state law. How could you hate a law with a name like that? Scientific prediction: Heterosexuals and heterosexual culture will continue to thrive for 6,000 years after the passing of R 71 until the ants take over, when polyandry will rule.

Yes to Seattle Prop 1 Low-income Housing Levy. Scientific prediction: I know, it doesn't amount to enough. But voting No gets nothing and doesn't send the desired message that we want more.

Vote Hell No on Initiative 1033. Scientific prediction: The initiative would subject state revenue growth from taxes to constraint based on a cost of living index which is unnecessary. There are already ample constraints, witness revenue shortfalls in a recession. The general cost of living does not reflect the need for services, especially in this state, with its huge gap between rich and poor.

What to say about the King County Charter Amendments? Um, my predictor needs sharpening. Oh look, I've run out of room!