(no subject)

It starts: Dean said made an oopsie of an un-PC utterance, well-meaning but not very well thought out, maybe of the same caliber as Perot's famous "you people". The lesser half of his opposing mob were quick to exacerbate it, smearing it around as fast as they could by themselves while the folks at HQ started selecting the perfect morose music and sickening visual filters to pair with the quote in the inevitable TV spots. Probably not enough to make any reasonable voter think that Dean's a racist pig, but enough to put Dean's people into damage-control mode for a while to minimize the ding.

I remember dreading this weeks ago, back when I first discovered Dean's surprising popularity, and remembering makes me realize that I haven't really been following the candidates' adventures since around the time Clark tossed his cap in. I guess the activity there is still pretty sparse, with months to go before the primaries. Still optimistic that someone genuinely strong will emerge from them, and remain unscandalized until next November. (And Clark hasn't said anything dumb yet, and seems much less likely to do so. And somethingawful.com has been swooning over Clark; I do not know what this means.)

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In local news, I succeeded in voting yesterday. First time I voted in seven years! To put this in perspective: the last time I voted, Bill Clinton was running for re-election. Remember back then? Those days? Boy o boy.

It was not a very interesting ballot; no referenda this year, and nothing at all to decide statewide. The biggest draw for me (and probably for most of my fellow Somerville voters) was the chance to choose the new mayor. Spent a little while Googling around for info about the two candidates, and basically concluded that one's agenda seemed fairly agreeable, and the other apparently didn't talk to the press much. (Literally -- at least one paper I read shruggingly said that he wouldn't return their calls.) So I voted for the first guy, and he won. Yay. (Yay? I hope so.)

The current mayor, who took office before I moved here, has tried very hard to make her name synonymous with everything ineteresting in Somerville. So every parade, art show, festival, new piece of statuary, etc. would say something like "The Elm Street Morris Dancing/Spoon Bending Coalition and DOROTHY KELLY GAY proudly present..." I kid her; it was never enough to actually make me cynical, but there really was quite a lot of it. So it's interesting to help redefine something that's been a part of Somerville's identity for as long as I've known it.

Messed up in voting for aldermen-at-large; I was supposed to pick four from the list provided, but apparently didn't read (I don't even recall seeing) the instructions directing me to do something besides the intuitive choice of choosing one name. Eh. Spoiled by instant-feedback UIs, me.

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Also, congrats to my Maine friends for sinking the casino measure. To be fair, I can't really say how I would have voted on it, since I didn't give it the sort of thought I would were I still a ME resident, but my gut feeling is clear. My parents voted for it, and told me that they actually felt awful about it, but decided that any solution to Maine's extreme fiscal problems was better than none. And that's a legitimate voting strategy, sure, though probably not the one I'd have chosen. I wonder how they feel about the outcome... more disappointed, or relieved? I'll find out soon enough.