Ferry Boats and Caucuses

Holy Cow, Batman, Am I A Democrat??:

The excitement suddenly spilled over into Puget Sound after the alleged “Super Tuesday” vote resulted in no clear leader. Now I have 27 messages on my answering machine from Hillary, Barry, and John McCain. They want my support in the caucus Saturday. Washington is suddenly important in the candidate selection process. What a surprise.

A lot of Washington voters are confused over this caucus deal. Since a great many of us got ballots in the mail that we have to mark and send in by February 19 we are wondering why Hillary wants our support on February 9. For one thing several of the names on the ballot are people who are no longer running. For another we have to sign the envelope and check which party we are. If we check “Democrat” it won’t matter because all of those delegates are being selected in the caucus. Election officials tell us that many of the ballots already mailed in do not have a party checked. So they are invalid.

We also have several districts with additional items on the ballot and those actually count. And the whole voting process costs money. So why are we doing this? Why confuse everyone? Oh, that’s right, it’s funny.

But enough about trivial matters.

Our danged passes over the mountains keep closing. We only have three passes between east and west here in Washington. These days about one or two are open at any given time. Even then chains are required. The snow reports are in feet not inches.

But this is only a small part of the story. All across the country there are tornados, snow storms, floods, and ice. It’s been a hard winter so far for everyone. We’ve lost the service of a couple of ferries due to damage from waves. Our latest wind storm has lasted for two days now. Barry is at Key Arena where the Sonics used to play basketball trying to get people to support him in the caucus tomorrow. Hard winter.

I wonder if this hard winter is getting us prepared for a long hot summer. Boy I hope so, and I hope the candidates keep calling, too.

Al