Going Down Swinging

Well, I have my answer to who would bother airing anti-Kasich political ads.

Marco Rubio, of course.

I saw two instances of the same Rubio ad last night. It was a kind of confusing mish-mash starting with (I'm paraphrasing here), "Marco Rubio is awesome," segueing into "Donald Trump is the debbil," then "a vote for Cruz or Kasich = a vote for Trump," so "vote Marco. Yay!" All in less than a minute.

Two things:

Those were the only political spots I saw all night although that may be my fault since most of my limited TV time was spent either on the BBC, Al Jazeera (while it lasts), or the pre-March Madness tournaments. Colbert was the exception and that's where I saw them. I realize Florida is a large state with very numerous and distinct TV markets but, although two is a definite increase over the one, or none, per day I've been subjected to so far, this does not at all feel like a saturation campaign just days before a must-win election. Perhaps they're suffering more in Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville.

Also, the ads were put together and run by Rubio's superPac since, according to reports/rumours, Rubio's campaign is out of money and can't afford to do any commercials on their own in his own home state! I'm sure that's a confidence builder for his backers.

And, Here. We. Go.

Our presidential primary is now under two weeks away and I have finally seen campaign attack ads. Two, precisely.

Just to set the record straight, I have seen a couple of Bernie Sander's ads, I think, but they were on MSNBC, a national cable channel, not local, and I could be wrong about that because they sometimes run bits of various ads as explanatory material to their editorial segments. The two I'm talking about were local and real.

The first was from an obvious Marco Rubio supporter, although I think not from the campaign itself since it didn't have the "I'm [CANDIDATE] and I support this . . ." disclaimer. It started by claiming Rubio has foreign policy expertise (dubious, but O.K.) and then went on to disparage Donald Trump. The best line was (paraphrasing), "He claims he can negotiate with China because a Chinese bank is a tenant in one of his buildings."

The second one was also anti-Trump and didn't mention any other candidate, so must have been put out by a super-pac. It went on about all his various business failures, an impressive list.

And that's it.

No Hillary or Bernie ads even though the Democratic primary is the same day.

No other Republican ads either for or against any of the candidates, all (and I mean all) of whom are still on the ballot here. No generic attack ads for or against anyone. Just those two spots, and each one just once. I don't watch a lot of TV and what I do watch is seldom local, but still.

I cannot imagine it will stay this quiet until March 15.

Taking the Plunge

Two women from the county clerk's office were at the library today when I stopped in. They had set up their voter registration table off to the side of the entryway. They get to be inside the foyer. The Christians are set up just outside in the shade of the arcade which is nice for them in the summer but our high temperature today was 68°F (20°C) and that was at sunrise. It's been dropping since and it's very windy out there.

I walked right past the county folks at first but turned around when I realized this is now 2016 and the primaries are coming up soon. I have been thinking of registering with a party to either vote for Bernie Sanders, who I really like, or, in an attempt to monkeywrench the Republicans, Donald Trump.

The incredibly helpful women (possibly employees, possibly volunteers, I didn't ask) had the necessary form (indeed, a full stack of them. Are there that many people choosing sides this time around?) right on the table. Although a different form, it asked the same information as a new voter registration form (which they also had in abundance) and took all of three minutes to fill out.

The only reason it took me that long is because I hesitated when I got to the choosing party section. There was a check box for "Democratic Party," and one for "Republican Party," one for "No Party Affiliation" which is totally redundant since not checking any of the boxes automatically results in the default "no party affiliation" status, and the last box, "Minor Party," with a space for the voter to fill in the name of the minor party of choice. (There were no suggested minor party names, i.e., Green, Libertarian, etc., which makes me wonder if I could just make up any party name I wanted and have that listed on my voter registration card.)

Anyway, I hesitated over which path to choose, support good or fight evil. I finally decided that, if I am going to start receiving political junk mail—and I know I will, now—I really don't want to see xenophobic fear-mongering, religious pandering and/or economic nonsense.

I am a proud new—officially registered—member of the Florida Democratic Party.

Go Bernie!

(Non-)Participatory Democracy

We finished up a week or so of early voting last week followed by the official primary vote day to select the candidates for each political party who will now run against each other for various local offices.

I say "we" although that "we" doesn't include "me" since I am unaffiliated and not allowed to involve myself in the parties' selection of their candidates, it being an internal party matter. (There is an interesting exception: If only one party will have a candidate for a particular office in the general election, a situation which can and does happen in this heavily conservative area where liberals have trouble finding people willing to be sacrificial lambs, then the primary for that office effectively becomes the general for that office and is open to all voters. That did not happen this time around.)

Someone wrote a letter to the paper complaining that the turnout was only 18%. It wasn't clear if that was of the total electorate (which wouldn't be quite fair since about 30% of the voters were, like myself, ineligible due to our independent status) or just of the party members. Either way is still pretty pathetic.

I am seriously thinking of registering with a political party in order to be able to vote in one or the other of the upcoming presidential primaries next spring. I just haven't decided whether to register Democrat in order to vote for Bernie Sanders because I think he's great, or Republican so I can vote for Donald Trump and try to monkeywrench their process. High road, low road. Which shall it be?

An interesting side note to last week's primaries: One of the early voting places was the town library and for the first day or two the Christians who have their little display out in front by the meeting room door moved over to the far side of the main entrance. Then they moved back for the rest of the week. I guess somebody figured out they weren't stumping for any listed candidate and weren't violating the ban on campaigning within a hundred yards of a polling place. Besides, they only talk amongst themselves unless someone approaches them and initiates the conversation.