Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Primary concerns

In general, I think that Howard Zinn has the right idea about
voting.

I almost didn't vote in the Oklahoma primary today. (The presidential primary took place back in February on Super Tuesday, but the primary for everything else was today.) Apparently, I was not alone in my lack of interest.

True, Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe is an embarrassment. But Democrat Andrew Rice had no serious opposition in his bid to unseat Inhofe. Rice is probably a nice young man, but he seems to have a talent for avoiding controversial subjects. Maybe this is a practical concession to the realities of winning an election in Oklahoma. But it did nothing to inspire me to vote for him in the primary.

On the other hand, a little bit of online research when I got home from work led me to the web site of Bert Smith. Smith was running for the chance to oppose Republican Rep. Mary Fallin in the Fifth Congressional District. On Smith's web site was the candidate's position on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban burning of the US flag. Smith's defense of free speech was enough to motivate me to hop on my bicycle and hurry down to my polling place to help Smith defeat opponent Steven L. Perry.

Apparently Perry won.

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