How I Voted Part Two

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.
—W. C. Fields

This year I'm voting against the Democrats.

If BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) has driven them into the Osama bin Laden camp, fine. Nuke 'em all. They asked for it.

Voting for Republicans is nothing new to me—I voted for Reagan. The story improves with the telling, of course, and the truth is I actually voted against the Sandalistas of Lane Communist College, but still. It turned out rather well, didn't it, what with the Berlin wall, and all?

What everyone wants to know this fall is will the Republicans lose the House or the Senate or both. The answer is neither and if we're lucky we'll have it settled by Christmas, but I doubt it.

Anyway Oregon's out of the loop because neither senator is up for re-election and the congressional districts are so completely gerrymandered that none will change parties. I'm voting for Greg Walden anyway, because his opponent is a Democrat.

I don't care who's running against our Democrat governor Ted Kulongoski, either. If his only opponent was an old yellow dog, the dog would get my vote. This year the dog's name is Ron Saxton. Nice boy; sit. Ted, go home. Git.

Our state representative Dennis Richardson sent us a newspaper clipping last spring about Lizzy going to Japan, along with a handwritten note of congratulations. That gesture probably won him two more votes, except I would have voted for him anyway because his opponent is a Democrat.

As for Oregon Supreme Court judges, it's pretty obvious that Virginia Linder is a liberal and anyway Gully says that Jack Roberts is alright, so I'm voting against Linder.

The office of circuit court judge doesn't really matter to me, and they're not allowed to say which party they belong to either, but it's pretty obvious that Greif's a liberal and Grensky's not, so I'm voting against Greif.

Once you get beyond that point on the ballot it's no longer partisan—it's personal.

It gives me particular pleasure to vote against county commissioner (position 3) Dave Gilmour, whom I loathe. I'm also voting for Jack Walker (position 1) because he, in turn, will vote against Dave Gilmour on every issue that comes up, should Gilmour get re-elected to the commissionariat. Which he shouldn't.

The big issue locally is civilian control of the police force, and that issue carries over into the race for Sheriff. Everyone inside the department seems to favor Tim George. Mike Winters's only friends are on the outside. That says to me that he must be doing something right.

I had intended to write a little background on the Gold Hill Police mess but the Mail Tribune has saved me the trouble by publishing a couple of articles this morning that cover it pretty well, including this timeline. In a third article they dig into the archives and note that Gold Hill's police department troubles go all the way back to 1961. Crackpot cops. A proud tradition for 45 years!

A small town of one thousand people, located on the interstate highway midway between two major metropolitan areas, does not need, and can not afford, its own three-man police force. Back in 2000 we contracted temporarily with the Jackson County Sheriff for full time on-call service at a rate of $6500 a month. That seems to me about right.

So I voted against the local option tax. I've already decided to vote for Allan Jennings for mayor. The question remains of who to put on the city council. There are four positions open and only two people bothered to file: Wolf and Silva. Four other people have put up signs offering their names as write-in candidates. Three of them clearly support the police department. The other guy, Bob Barry, I've never heard of. His one-word slogan is "Accountability". That will have to do.