Preparing for early voting...

Thanks to the wonder that is early voting, I won't have to stand in line to cast my first in-person presidential vote on Election Day. So I spent the past two hours researching candidates in the local elections that no one has bothered to talk about very much in spite of the fact that they probably make a greater difference in the lives of most people's day-to-day lives than the national election. (Deep breath).

I refuse to simply vote along party lines. Given the almost 50/50 party mix of my finalized ballot (including one Libertarian candidate) it's hard to consider myself partisan anyway. I went online to the Houston Chronicle, which actually provided a fairly good voter's guide that allows you to compare two candidates. It reassured me, for example, that I will vote for a tree before I vote for Tom DeLay -- not that it matters much anyway in this district.

Unfortunately, there were a few shortcomings to the process. For example, no direct comparisons between candidates were possible outside of the Presidential and Congressional elections. However, barring that, most of the failures of the Houston voter's guide are the fault of the candidates themselves. I point them out here on the off-chance that a future candidate for office happens to come across this blog and wants to know how to earn my vote:

• Okay guys, in this day and age, you really need to have a website. If nothing else, it shows you actually care. Hell, you don't actually have to say anything. Just put a picture of your smiling face up if you have to. Which reminds me...
  
• If you're going to have a website, here's what isn't going to earn my vote: having nothing other than a photo gallery showing you hobnobbing with a few people I guess I'm theoretically supposed to recognize; showing a list of quotes from members of your own party talking about how bad-ass you are; and so forth. Talk about your platform, for God's sake! (I suppose this contradicts my first point, but take baby steps: first website, then website that actually means something.) Weirdly, the candidates that addressed these concerns most directly were the two candidates for Tax Assessor.
  
• Last of all, and this is kind of a corollary to the points above, don't assume I'm going to vote for you because of your party affiliation. Having a difficult time choosing in one Court of Appeals race, I was struck by a candidate whose website had a link that said, "Why I Am Running as a Republican". Honestly, reading her history, I was wondering the same thing. And she told me. It made sense, I agreed with her general outlook on the judicial process, and I will be voting for her.

I don't guess anyone actually cares about much of the stuff in this rant anyway. But hey, at least it's more coherent than my last one (the point of which, incidentally, was to examine the strange methods we as a country are trying to promote love overseas while restricting it here -- a point I'm not sure I actually made :-P). Anyhoo, I really just wanted to post something since I hadn't for a while.

Also, between now and November 2, make sure to vote! Even if you can't decide between the lesser of two evils in our Presidential election, vote for constable or something. Don't do it for me, or your country, do it for yourself. After all, it's fun to poke those holes or press those buttons.

Song lyric of the day:
"Purify the colors, purify my mind
And spread the ashes of the colors
Over this heart of mine"
-The Arcade Fire, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)