I don’t know what I think about the primary results yesterday. It’s good to see Hillary confound the conventional wisdom and refuse to die, and good for Obama to see he’s not anointed yet. It’s good to see voters come out in record numbers. And I like to watch a good fight as much as anyone.
But I don’t think an ongoing struggle between them is going to do any good for the Democratic Party. It won’t help them refine their issues, it will just inspire the candidates and (mostly) their advisers to bring out the throwing knives and poison pills. It’s already happened with Hillary’s campaign, the “Kitchen Sink” strategy, and behold! It worked! Prepare for a whole lot more of that. And months of continual backstabbing will make it a lot harder at the convention for people to rally round one candidate. Bitterness will linger and dilute the party’s strength, money and energy. And McCain can cruise from fundraiser to fundraiser, looking like an elder statesman and selling his soul for evangelical endorsements at his leisure.
Good lord, when are we ever going to shrink this campaign season? It’s nearly eight months between the Iowa caucuses and the convention. Have these schedules changed since the advent of the horseless carriage? How much money, time and air space has to be spent over this thing?
Not trusting the touch-screen voting machines (wonder why?), many voters in Ohio asked for paper ballots yesterday, causing shortages in many areas. Why do they have such trouble holding elections there? It’s starting to shake my faith that the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductions aren’t on the up-and-up. You can’t tell me that some conspiracy hasn’t been keeping .38 Special from the Hall all these years. “Waitin’…Anticipatin’….”
Ohio, listen, it’s not so hard to fix an election. People do it all the time, especially here in Chicago. The trick is, don’t make your move too early. That’s when the reporters, hungry for a story, are around. Don’t make it hard to vote in the beginning, with dodgy computers and too few paper ballots. Let everyone vote. Grease the skids. Make it easier than using an ATM. Then, just lose the results. Toss the proper number of ballot boxes in the river, screw up the electronic transmission of results by never testing the system, erase hard drives with magnets. Come on, it’s like you guys want to rewrite the book on this or something. Get over yourselves and use the groundwork that’s already been laid.