Rudi Will Graciously Do Your Voting For You It's Tuesday morning, and the polls are open. Today is the final day for Weber County citizens to exercise their voter franchise in the 2006 general elections -- or refrain from exercising it -- as the case may be.
And in that connection we're taking a novel approach this year. In a political environment where the media all across the land urge voters to get to the polls and vote, we're urging voters to stay home. For our own part, of course, we will go to the polls this morning ourselves, keeping in mind that a low voter turnout magnifies our political clout. If the voter turnout drops by 50% of normal, for instance, our own relative political power is doubled. We thus urge everybody to stay home. Let Rudi and a few other political wonks make your decisions for you this year, we say.
For those diehards who insist on going to the polls anyway, notwithstanding your blogmeister's wise contrarian advice, there still remains one way, for Senate 18 Democrats at least, to refrain from exercising their voter franchise.
In recent days we've heard some grousing from democrats among our gentle readership, complaining of the inclusion of a wretched DINO on their otherwise party-pristine ticket. "I'll hold my nose and press the Stuart Reid button," said gentle Curmudgeon in a lower comments thread, "...but I'll vow to become more involved in my party in the future..." (or something very similar.)
Well, it appears that Mr. Reid may have taken distressed Democratic voters almost completely off the hook in recent weeks. For all intents and purposes, it seems to us, Mr. Reid has renounced the very party that put his name on today's ballot.
We'd already heard that Mr. Reid's most recent mailers had neglected any reference to a Democratic party affiliation, but an intra-party event put the frosting on the party-turncoat cake last week.
According to a Democratic party insider with whom we talked yesterday, Mr. Reid refused to participate in this half-page weekend ad, which proudly bears the names and faces of all other Weber County Democratic candidates who will appear on today's ballots under the Democratic Party banner. Mr. Reid did not want to be associated with the other Democratic candidates, we were told. He's a political "hybrid," after all.
Mr. Reid has apparently flown the coop, left blushing fellow candidates in the lurch, and slapped the faces of the party who handed him the Democratic Party nomination.
In classic Stuart Reid style, he DID manage to soak up six grand or so of Democratic party donations before his back-door departure however. Perhaps he considered these funds some kind of severance bonus.
You're off the hook Weber County Democrats. In the event you disregard your blogmeister's sage advice about refraining from voting altogether, the Senate 18 race remains one place you can vote with your feet.
And for the uber-stubborn among us, who obsessively insist on casting their vote today, remember: "A vote for Reid is a vote for Godfrey."
Stay away from the polls!
Update 11/7/06 7:10 p.m. MT: We've scoured the net for the best sites for local election updates, and these are the best two that we've found.
The Standard-Examiner has a dynamic site here. (It updates every 90 seconds.)
The Salt Lake Tribune version is viewable here. (We'll have to wait and see whether it is dynamic.)
Of the two, the Std-Ex site seems to have the better design, at least for political wonks who are closely looking for 2006 Weber County Election results. In both cases, the tracking of races included on Weber County ballots will require some navigation between pages. Both sites have navigation links below the page headers.
We've also added the Std-Ex link to the right sidebar.
Good luck everyone; and may the best candidates emerge as winners.
