A Cry for Help

Well, I voted early (but not often. What, do you think we have Diebold machines or something?) Final count: 7 Democrats, 4 Republicans, 1 Independent, 6 yeas and 3 nays. If you haven't gone to the polls yet, and care about what I think, here's part 2 of my electoral musings:

I decided to draw the line next to Rod Driver's name. Is this perennial candidate a little out there? Sure, but if you ask me, that's what the House of Representatives is for! Really, though, his recent letter to the editor [no link, projo is dead today] sealed the deal. Good stuff. I like Congressman Langevin quite a bit, so I'm not too worried about this race.

The big one, of course, is our Senate race. Along with Montana, Tennessee and Virginia, we're making a decision here in little Rhody that is going to affect the entire nation. It's not a decision I take lightly. Before the campaign started, it seemed to me the decision would hinge on the one vote that counts the most: who will control the senate. And that's the campaign Whitehouse ran. The ads were pretty good, excepting the few negatives we had in there (Chafee's not defending our ports? Whitehouse didn't prosecute the Roger Williams guys? Come on.) I even like Linc's latest, "People tell me, I like you Linc, but I have to send Bush a message." That's exactly how I feel. And Chafee's answer wasn't enough to keep me from voting for Sheldon this morning. I'm convinced that the best thing for this country is a Democrat controlled Senate, and Chafee just can't deliver there.

Is there any issue I'll miss less than the Question 1 ads? Not likely. Of course, if a majority of my fellow Ocean Staters join me in voting NO on the casino, I'm sure that won't be the last we hear from Chief Sachem Thomas and the Harrah's Bunch (good band name). This vote vexed me a little, because I couldn't really find a coherent philosophical reason for voting against this, it was mostly a gut decision. Both sides got a little ridiculous (the Narragansetts' "no more broken promises" and Save Our State's "a casino looming over an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!" come to mind) with the ads, so that was a wash. My feeling was that the benefits of supposedly lower taxes (doubtful) and increased tourism monies would be more than outweighed by the social, environmental and economic costs (especially in Providence).

I was pretty disappointed in the ProJo reversing their long held position against the casino. Something smells fishy to me on that one. I was also concerned about the progressive community's embrace of the question 1. I usually try to defend Rhode Island's lefties despite their usual complete lack of understanding of economics (I'm generalizing here), but I think they're shooting themselves in the foot on this. Pumping money to Harrah's is not economic development for RI.

So there you have it, 2006 as it played out in my brain. I hope you thought about what was important to you and voted too. I can't wait for tonight!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Local Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.