I guess when scouting sites for political rallies, my photos must have helped, because McCain spoke yesterday morning at the Spanish Village, and Obama spoke last night at Johnson Field, both in Albuquerque, both on the same day.
People are calling me asking who I'm voting for, and some nice old hippies came to the door this morning asking, and I told them all the same: I don't want to talk about that. I don't HAVE to talk about that. I don't even have to tell my husband who I'm voting for. People seem to have lost the true meaning of American elections which is that one's choices are personal and private (guaranteed by law), and that no campaigning is allowed within 100 feet of a polling place. People in Albuquerque either are ignorant or feigning ignorance, in being appalled (preferably on TV on on the radio) at being turned back from polling places for wearing t-shirts with candidates names on them. I realize that when the laws were new, there were no imprinted t-shirts and voters were probably wearing long-sleeved, long-legged underwear under long-sleeved, long-legged everything else, but still... If one wants to have the county clerk (or whoever's in charge of polling wherever you are; translate into local lingo as needed) make exceptions about one part of the law (which he or she is not at liberty to do anyway,) where will that end?
The rant is ended. Go in peace. And I don't want to know for whom any of you intend to vote, either, just to let you know that my blog is a likely candidate for the Magic 8 Ball of the month.
1 comment:
You will definitely want to read this fascinating recent New Yorker article about the history of American elections. Until the late 19th century there were apparently no such thing as secret ballots in America. The attitude was that no honest man would ever want to hide his vote. Our current system was imported from Australia, partly as a way to deal with rampant political corruption.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/13/081013fa_fact_lepore
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