Ruth's musings

I have been dealing with breast cancer for a while, and have been sharing my journey with friends, family, and prayer partners. This blog brings all my updates together in one place, and leaves me free to muse on other parts of my life. Thanks for visiting!

Thursday, February 07, 2008

A Pox on Both Your Houses

I'm not very political, really. I do vote, but I don't live or die on the outcome. Probably. Until today, the races for the presidential nominations were pretty interesting, though. The Democrats still have a horse race, even after Super Tuesday. The Republicans did, too, but now Mitt has bowed out. Paul and I thought that was pretty sudden. I think that maybe somebody in the party got to him and convinced him to bow out "for the good of the party." At least he gave "the good of the party" as his reason. I don't know, but it seems pretty suspicious to me. The thought that he might have been offered the running mate slot was voiced at the dinner table.

Here in my state, I could vote in either primary. Or neither. Earlier in the year, the Virginia Republican Party tried to get something through that would require anyone voting in the Republican primary to sign an oath that they promise to vote for the Republican nominee in the fall. That didn't last long.

It is interesting that the Virginia primary might actually have some impact. It has been later in the year before this, when all was decided. This year, we have the "Potomac Primary," with Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia having primaries on the same day. I think it is also interesting that one of the conventions might actually mean something. It has been so long since the convention actually selected the nominee that I cannot remember when that was.

The church where I work is a polling place, and the preschool will be in session during part of the polling time. We are doing some pretty fast thinking to figure out how to accommodate the expected crowds and still keep the children safe. And, to top it off, I will be in the oncologist's office for most of the day. The preschool director is not happy with that situation.

I am not fond of politics, but I am fond of the democratic process. Not necessarily the way it is practiced in the USA, but letting people choose their leaders seems to be the way to go. I was glad that Kenya had gone to a multi-party system. While we lived there, they only had one political party. I thought it was pretty funny when the president was congratulated all around when he was re-elected. Some of the seats in parliament were contested, but the president had no competition. There was election-day violence then, but what is happening in Kenya now makes my heart ache. When we lived there, I saw very little ethnic conflict. Oh, sure, people could tell each other's ethnic groups pretty much by looking at them, but everybody seemed to get along. I just don't understand what has happened.

2 Comments:

  • At 6:57 AM, Blogger CraftyGryphon said…

    I, too, was wondering if Mitt had been offered the "Veep" carrot to quit. If the Republicans win, they could certainly use someone with his business experience on board (rather the way Warner helped get Virginia back on its financial feet when he was governor).

    Have you noticed that the news-shops have been naming our primaries either the "Chesapeake Primaries" (MSNBC, CNN) or the "Potomac Primaries" (FOX, locally)? I'm sure there's even some weird political wrangling going on over what they're "actually" called!!

     
  • At 2:27 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    I think it's interesting that it would be called the "Potomac Primaries" when almost all of Virginia is really nowhere near the Potomac river. incidentally I had not heard that term until now.

    Matt

     

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