Confession No. 1: I've been a registered Republican for the last four years.
Disclaimer No. 1: It was completely without my knowledge. Hillary suspects a vast right-wing conspiracy.
A little while ago, My Love and I each received postcards in the mail from the Stamford Registrar of Voters office asking us to confirm our existence. This isn't Chicago, after all. So I looked them over. Names and addresses were right. Then I noticed ... it.
My Love's card had a "D" at the top, noting she was a member of "D'at Party." Mine had an "R."
As is, "Really!?!"
When we moved back here, I registered to vote at the same time I applied for my Connecticut state driver's license. I'm positive I put down "unaffiliated," "independent" or whatever the proper choice was to indicate I had a mind I could make up on my own, thank you very much.
Could the DMV have screwed up my God-given right, as an American, to vote for whomever I wanted to screw up my God-given rights as an American? Naaah …
So, I crossed out the "R" on my postcard, scrawled "unaffiliated/independent," signed it and dropped in the mail. A week later, the registrar of voters sent me an application to register to vote. To the Batphone!
The woman I spoke with at the registrar's office explained that, when I registered four years ago, I must have checked the box that said that I chose not to pick a party at that time. However, since I had previously been a registered voter in Stamford, the "system" re-activated my old file and it defaulted to the party I had last been registered with.
Confession, No. 2: I was a registered Republican for the first 12 years of my voting life.
Disclaimer, No. 2: I was only 18 when I first registered. It was the height of the Reagan Revolution. It had been drilled into my head for years that it was important to pick a party so I could vote in a primary. I blame my parents, the media and society. Shame on all of you!
Actually, I had a plan. I joined the party in power because if it turned out they were greedy, uncaring, phony-baloney, hypocritical purveyors of not-niceness than I would work from within the party structure to start a reform movement that would raise their spiritual, moral and political conscienceness to a higher plane that would benefit society as a whole.
I also believed in Santa Claus until I was about 9. Then my sister showed me the stash of unwrapped presents under the living room couch.
So, I asked the woman on the phone if she could help me out.
"That's no trouble," she said. "I'll do it right now."
That was awfully nice of her. Of course, I may not have been who I said I was on the phone. I could have been anyone. I could have been an Al-Qaeda operative. I could have been Dooley Womack. I could have … hmmm …
Coming soon: Confession, No. 3.
OK - so your post prompted some MAJOR self-examination.
ReplyDeleteI am registered as an independent, so I can't vote in any primary.
I am socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. I generally vote Republican in city and state elections and Democratic at the federal level because I believe the federal level has a more important impact on social issues (e.g. Supreme court nominees, enforcement of environmental regulations, etc) and I'd rather have a Dem filling those jobs.
But I tend to align more with a Republican fiscal conservativism. I don't feel like I need to pay much less in taxes (although I wouldn't turn down the extra cash) but I do object to paying more, when the government can't even clean up the massive fraud, waste, and pork barrel projects.
So in a nutshell... who am I?
A child of a ultra conservative Republican father and an identity-confused but Democrat mother... and a pile of inlaws that are all journalists or public schoolteachers, so take a wild guess at the affiliations there.
If asked, I would call myself a Democrat. But I've voted Republican (with the BIG exception of Bush, I have NEVER voted for him) in most of the last elections I can remember.
this even prompted me to revise my "about me" profile...
Ye gods. have I turned into a Republican while nobody was watching???
you have shaken me to my core.
Wow. If only my words had this effect on children, spouses and beloved canine companions.
ReplyDeleteJust for fun, here is one of my many sure-to-be-discredited political theories. In local elections for offices of no great consequence to the general public(constable, railroad commissioner, spitball wadder-upper), always vote for third-party candidates ... unless, of course, they are or are supported by known evil entities (Commies, KAOS, the Steinbrenner family). One, it gives everyone hope to be elected to office someday. Two, one time they will win and scare some sense into the two majority parties. Three, just because you can.God Bless the USA!
Hmmm. well, I did throw a vote once at a member of the "concerned citizens party" back in 98.
ReplyDeleteI still don't know what particularly concerned him...
I took the "R" way out when I moved up here mostly because the CT republicans just didn't seem to fit the rest of he mold, Times have changed and I have yet not to vote third party since Anderson ran in a presidential race. The rest get fairly split.
ReplyDelete