ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

For some background on this, I got my mail-in ballot and then let it sit on on the table for like a week because I was still too uninterested in every candidate to actually commit my vote in any direction.  Last week I finally sat down and filled it out.  I think doing a mail-in ballot is way better than going to the polls.  You can really take your time and you don’t have any surprises or unexpected candidates you don’t know about.  If you see a name you don’t recognize, you have all the time you want to research them on the internet.  

I got the thing mostly filled out and I left the presidential oval undarkened for hours while I thought about the whole thing because I still could not will myself to choose any of these people.  I like the John McCain from 2000 who wasn’t stuck pandering to crazy religious right wackos.  And I maybe could have voted for him if he didn’t have that psychopath Sarah Palin for a running mate.  I mean, even if I liked her as a person, which I don’t, she’s completely nuts.  I seriously think she is one of those people who believes deep down inside that this is a Christian country and that the nonreligious don’t really truly deserve the rights the government has so generously given them.  And I don’t think I can bear to actually cast a vote for poor John McCain when his running mate believes crazy shit like we’re coming to the end of days and that her religion should dictate who is allowed to marry.  However much I might prefer his fiscal policy.  I mean, if a bear raped me, Sarah Palin thinks I should be legally required to bring my bear baby to term even if that meant I’d die when the thing decides to perform its own C-section at 8 months.  How can I vote for that?

And Barack Obama.  He’s spot on for all the social issues I’m concerned with.  But I really don’t like his fiscal anything.  And he’s anti-gun.  And all my veteran/military friends are afraid he’ll end the war immediately and make everything they went through all a big waste.  But he’s not a religious nut like Sarah Palin, which goes a long way.  

I spent an hour complaining to my husband about how if Kathleen Sebelius were running for President, my choice would be really obvious.  Because I love Kathleen Sebelius and I agree with her on almost everything and I think she’s wonderful.  

After a long time I ended up darkening the oval next to Barack Obama’s name, which in a way is a sad thing, to vote for a candidate you don’t really believe in to avoid voting for a candidate you’re genuinely afraid is a threat to your civil rights.  It’s too bad to have to choose between spending policies you agree with and social policies you don’t consider fascist.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Obama is the worst, just like I don’t think McCain is the worst.  I think he’ll probably do mostly fine and we’ll pull through like we always do.  But it makes me feel bad to always be stuck with candidates I can’t really root for.  It would be cool to get to be one of those people who can be full-throttle rah-rah for somebody.  I never quite get there.  I always seem to wind up either abstaining out of principle, like when Pat Roberts ran unopposed in the primary, or voting for the person who scares me less.  

Sebelius ‘12?

Anyway, so after I mailed the ballot I began to regret my vote.  Not in the sense that I wished I had voted for McCain and the deerslayer instead.  No, I think not.  But having reflected on the fact that, particularly in this state and in consideration of the miserable disgrace the electoral college makes of our voting system, my vote basically counts for nothing, I wish I’d decided to throw it away on the Libertarian party.  I think Bob Barr is basically an asshole and I don’t like him any more than the other two, but at least I agree with Libertarian principles in general.  Lacking interest or faith in Republican or Democrat and considering I think my vote is a waste anyway, I now think I should have gone moderate and voted Libertarian so that I could have made some pathetic stand against a two-party system that does exactly the opposite of representing me.  For once, it’s a comfort to think about the fact that nothing I do really counts in this political system.  My misfire won’t really have an impact anyway.  

The only Republican I voted for in this election was Nick Jordan, whom I selected because my main problem with Republicans is their views on religion, gays, reproductive rights and similar social issues I care about, and his website does not have any of the typical Republican buzzwords used to talk about those things.  Almost every candidate has an “issues” section on their website, and if you go to the issues section and check for words like “family” that always serves as a lead-in for a tactfully worded speech about how gay people are different and wrong and it will destroy everything if they are allowed to marry.  ”Family” is also cited as an important guiding principle in why abortion and birth control will destroy society.  The curious absence of any of that shit on Jordan’s website makes me think he is moderate, which is exactly the type of Republican I’m into.  At least, that’s what I decided in the 5 minutes I spent checking him out.  

Then tonight I came home from work and my husband and I sat down to watch some TV and he was messing around on his laptop on the couch and suddenly began to laugh.  He paused last night’s episode of Dexter (we didn’t get to watch last night because I hated our dinner and insisted on driving to Arby’s for one of those sandwiches with the thick fluorescent orange cheese goo on it - I just really needed that for some reason).  Then he showed me the online auction he was reading.  ”Highly erotic engraving!” he announced gleefully.  

It turned out he was looking at some crazy custom-made rifle that was built for some inane Russian alleged criminal or something weird like that.  And the gun has this elaborate engraving of, uh, well, if you’re familiar at all with Greek mythology, Artemis being fucked from behind by a satyr.  

“I kind of wish the blurred spot wasn’t there,” my husband mused.  ”Just how erotic IS it?”

“Oh my god,” I said.  ”You should contact the person and tell them you’re considering a purchase but that it hinges on what is behind that blurred circle.  Get them to send you the unedited picture!”  

He laughed but it was pretty clear he was not going to do that.  Damn.  

Anyway, you know what’s totally fucked?  Neither party probably approves of someone like my husband being able to own that rifle.  The Democrats don’t want him to have the gun, and the Republicans don’t want him to have the smut.  So I guess I’m throwing my votes away on the Libertarians from now on.  Because I feel that is the only party that truly supports our right to the purchase and responsible use of guns with graphic images of bestiality engraved on them.