alexist

I checked parents' electoral district--I'll update my registration when I'm over so I can get a real absentee ballot rather than a federal one. I want to vote for governor. ;) I know that technically I'm prohibited from voting in local or county elections as I reside overseas, but I don't know about governor. The overseas ballot is called a federal ballot, so I don't know if it includes the gubernatorial election. Spitzer will presumably win the primary and I'll vote for him for governor--anything's better than Pataki. A

lthough New York state politics are so dysfunctional that I despair. It's all backroom deals between Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (Dem) and Senate Speaker Joseph Bruno (Rep). The Legislature is a vehicle for paying people to come stay in Albany. They'll never solve anything because none of them want to upset their entrenched constituencies. Upstate Republicans don't want to tell their constituents that New York City is getting a raw deal, or that the state educational formula has to be re-worked because it's simply a myth. It screws everyone. For example, inequalities mean that a rich district in Nassau gets less than a rich one in Suffolk, making Nassau school taxes outrageously high. At the same time, NYC gets less school aid per capita than the rest of the state even though its students are needier--and the state has balked at fixing it. The only way to fix it is to create an entirely new formula, but everyone's afraid of coming out the loser, because someone has to.

They're staying in the same congressional district (NY 2nd, D-Steve Israel) so that's an easy one for me. He's a little conservative for my tastes, but reasonable enough and certainly better than any Republican they'd put up. Though I miss being in Gary Ackerman's district; he was cool. Still represents NY 5th, but the boundaries were moved.

2002 was Carolyn McCarthy, again rather moderate, but a huge improvement over Pete King the IRA-supporting ultraconservative Republican who still manages to represent the 3rd [the boundaries moved, I didn't]. Incumbency and the unwillingness of any promising Democrat to risk his career in a challenge keep him in place. LI used to be known for being relatively conservative, which is how he got in, but as the national GOP has moved right, and the Nassau GOP imploded under the weight of its own corruption, it's become Democrat territory. 2000 I was in Huntington, I think the 2nd district, and voted for whoever the Democrat was. (Sense a pattern? ;) )

Senate will be an easy vote for Hillary Clinton. I don't love the woman, but she's doing a decent job and the Republicans can't even seem to find a candidate. Besides, for all the talk about moderate Republicans, they mainly seem to vote with the party anyway, so I couldn't in good conscience vote for one with the national party the way it is. The party as a whole is unlikely to come far enough left for my liking, but there have been occasional members I respected, and once upon a time they had some influence within the party. Nowadays it's gone off to the hee-haw wing. I'm not a big business whore, but at least that branch had an awareness of the wider world and weren't fixated on spreading evangelical Christianity. Intellectual sophistication and subtlety have gone down the pan.

It's 6am and I've just finished scrubbing the kitchen floor. Not just mopping, but a real hands and knees scrub. Eh, needed doing I guess.

So does the bathroom, but that will wake Neil up (water in the tub is fairly noisy and he's a light sleeper).

Ah well, I'm feeling tired now, so I might as well grab a couple hours sleep...