Election Day

It’s election day, people. I like to vote on election day. I like the ritual of it. And I like to keep my powder dry. You never know if something might happen to change my mind.

Nothing has.

I’m voting for Susan Crawford for Attorney General because, while she’s run an awful campaign loaded with distortions and half-truths, so has the other guy. Neither of these candidates deserves to sit on any bench (well, maybe for their softball team), but faced with a stark choice between a liberal partisan and a conservative one, I’ll go with the one closer to my own views.

By contrast, I’m voting for Brittany Kinser for Superintendent of Public Instruction with enthusiasm. The state of public education in Wisconsin is bad and getting worse. We need a change of direction and, while this post is a pretty weak one, a change here would be a good start.

Locally, I’m also happy to vote for Bret Wagner for Madison School Board. He’s not the big change agent I want, but frankly, his reasoned approach probably makes more sense on a board where he’s likely to be the only voice of reason among seven members.

Also locally, Dane County residents will be shocked to learn that there is a contest for their County Executive office. Yep. Stephen Ratzlaff is taking on incumbent Melissa Agard. I’ve talked with Ratzlaff. He’s a good guy. But Agard, who only took office in November, hasn’t been around long enough to either earn my vote or give me a reason to vote against her. I’ll just leave this part of the ballot blank. But it is unfortunate that a race for an office this important hasn’t generated more interest.

And I’m voting against the state constitutional amendment that would put voter ID requirements into that document. While I have no problem with the current requirements, they don’t belong in the constitution. This was just a scam by Republicans to try to gin up votes for Brad Schimel in the Supreme Court race. Yeah, it’ll pass, but not with my vote.

I hope this might be one of the last times I’ll have to vote in either of these statewide races, but I do hope to get a chance to vote for a meaningful constitutional amendment. We should go to an appointment system for Supreme Court and a cabinet level secretary position for education. Justices are appointed at the Federal level and in many other states, and the top education official is an administrator who should be appointed in any event. These bogus “nonpartisan” elections have become too horrible for words.

It would take at least two years to amend the constitution to get these offices changed. And I doubt there’s the political will to make the change anyway. But let’s start pushing for it now and see what happens. We’ve got nothing to lose. It can’t get any worse.

See you back here tomorrow to sift through the wreckage.

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