Washington State Democratic Primary

So, I’m about to fill in my ballot for the Washington State Primaries. They need to be postmarked by today (Tuesday). Now, since I participated in the Democratic Caucus, I am bound to do the Democratic Primary, not the Republican. It would be nice to do one of each, but that is not allowed.

Now, the Republican primary matters. Half of the states delegates on the Republican side will be determined by the Primary (the other half were determined by the caucuses a couple of weeks ago).

But on the Democratic side, this doesn’t matter at all. All of the delegates were determined by the Caucus. So this is actually completely irrelevant. None the less, I am going to think about it somewhat. The choices are:

• Joe Biden
• Hillary Clinton
• Chris Dodd
• John Edwards
• Mike Gravel
• Dennis Kucinich
• Barack Obama
• Bill Richardson
• Write In: ______________

Hmmm… remember some of those names? Only three of them are still running of course. And nobody pays any attention to Senator Gravel. But the rest are all still on the ballot. Which makes me think about it again, and makes me sad about how we have this process where since not all of the primaries and caucuses are at the same time, peoples first choice may be “not running” by the time of the actual vote.

Now, I’ve been noticing on the election returns on the last few states on the little pie charts they show on TV, there is actually usually a fairly decent sized grey wedge that is “other”. Now, some of that may be random write ins, but I’m guessing most of it is people voting for candidates who have already dropped out. Which is of course still completely valid. They may not be campaigning, but they are indeed still on the ballot.

Which brings me to me. My first choice overall before Iowa was Ron Paul. But my first choice on the Democratic side was actually Joe Biden. Should I take this opportunity to give Senator Biden the nod?

On the other hand, I’m now actually an Obama delegate to the county convention. Should that hold any weight?

And has my mind actually changed? If Joe was still running, would I still pick him over Obama now?

And, of course, why am I even thinking of this, since there are no delegates at stake and this actually doesn’t matter at all?

Then I think… the only way the results of this contest could be at all relevant are if everybody thinks it doesn’t matter and doesn’t bother… and in the low turnout environment Hillary manages to pull out a win… a win that doesn’t matter at all really, but might give voice to some sort of “Obama won here two weeks ago, but now Hillary won, Hillary has the momentum again!” sort of bull.

So… sorry Joe… I’m filling in Obama.