EDITOR'S COLUMN: Primary election choices are excruciating

As many of you know by now, this new primary election is painful. Personally, I was going to sit this one out but then I got the four ballots in the mail and an “I Voted” sticker, thanks to the gals in the Auditor’s Office. I was always against absentee ballots because they didn’t include a sticker, so now my best excuse to skip the election was gone.

Like any good citizen, I started voting, but soon I was jumping from ballot to ballot, even though I knew it was illegal under the new, Fuhrer-imposed primary system. But there were several Republicans I liked and several Democrats I liked, and I couldn’t help but vote for them. The Libertarian ballot I tore up and threw in the cat’s litter box because I’m mad at them. Did the same thing with the Non-partisian ballot, because it’s as boring as a party convention.

At present, there are two ballots sitting on the dining room table waiting for me to decide which one to send back, seeing as how my votes won’t count if I send them both back. In September 2004, we’re not allowed to vote for who we want, which is the system we’re trying to impose on Iraq. That means, for this election at least, I’ll have to decide if I’m a Republican or a Democrat. I’ve never thought of myself as either because they both specialize in telling people what to do. When one party proposes a new law the other is usually against it, but they’ve always got their own new law in waiting.

I can’t imagine myself as a Republican. If I were ever to get pregnant, perish the thought, I’d want every choice available, including some they haven’t even thought of yet. And I can’t see myself marching into the sunrise with Arnold Schwarznegger leading the way.

Nor can I imagine myself as a Democrat. I’ve got two guns I want to keep and I don’t want the government to know about them. I got the guns way back when this was still a free country so the government is clueless about them. Years later, I ran out of bullets and tried to buy some more, but by then you had to sign your name to a governement paper before you could buy bullets, which I refused to do. So now I’ve got two guns and no bullets with which to fight off the terrorists, should they ever strike. When I die screaming “Bang! Bang!”, it’ll be the government’s fault.

Nor can I imagine myself a Libertarian. Oh, sure, as a Libertarian I can buy all the illegal drugs I want, I can hire myself out as a prostitue and I don’t have to pay taxes, but — and this is why their ballot is now in my cat’s litter box — I can’t vote for who I want in the primary election.

Those two ballots sitting on the table are a constant irritant, reminding me of the freedom of bygone days in Washington State. Democrat? Republican? I can’t even remember which one says “potato” and which one says “potato,” and I can’t stand the thought of being labeled as either. Every morning I’d have to look in the mirror and say “there’s a Democrat,” or “there’s a Republican,” even if no one else knew which ballot I chose. How appalling. Word of my ballot choice would no doubt leak out and then I’d be labeled for life. Democrat? Republican? It makes the old “lady or the tiger” choice look easy.

Right now I can’t say which ballot I will return. Maybe I’ll just send back the “I Voted” sticker and tell the government where to stick it.

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