Elections | Saying nothing in particular

I’ve lived in California for most of my adult life and so I don’t know . . . are all state primaries as crazy as ours? One news commentator referred to our upcoming gubernatorial primaries as “The Hunger Games” (a reference to a series of fictional battles for survival which are fought by teenagers.) Having helped raise teenagers, I didn’t quite make it through the first Hunger Games movie so I can’t comment. Does every state have 61 candidates running for governor who act like horny teenagers?

Wait. I guess the number is now 60 as the front runner (Mr. Swalwell) was forced out. However, he is still on the list. Maybe he’ll mount a revival.

This list contains: Twenty-four Democrats. twelve Republicans. one Libertarian. one Peace & Freedom person, and twenty-three No Party Preference party poopers. I’ll get to them later.

Roughly half of the candidates submitted Candidate Statements; the others did not. If voters want to find out about say, David Zickefoose or Barack D. Obama Shaw, they’ll have to do some research. I think I’ll pass. What a waste to go to all that work and then assume you might get a vote or two without going to any effort?

Now to those No Party Preference candidates: Two belong to parties that just aren’t qualified: the American Solidarity Party, a liberal leaning though decidedly Pro-Life group, and the Socialist Workers Party.

Then there are these folks:

He wants to “suffocate homelessness, assassinate unemployment and nuke crime.” Rightly dighty, dude. ‘Fraid you don’t have my vote.

LivingForGod is a lot more eloquent, isn’t he?

Like the pilot who “punches through the storm” so we can breathe again, he’s going to hand us a fire extinguisher so that we can put out the dumpster fire started by the “old” parties. Righteous Brother! I almost wish you were running for president!

On the other hand, this guy is downright scary:

A whole bunch of conspiracy theories packed into one real charmer. Yikes!

Thankfully the candidates for Lieutenant Governor seem quite sane.

Last month we took a trip back to Washington, DC and Charleston, SC – two places technically in the southeast but, aside from grits and soft-shelled (blue) crabs, they’ve little in common. One is a sprawling metropolis and the other a snapshot of the genteel south circa 1780. Needless to say, I have enough doors to be able to participate in Norm Frampton’s #ThursdayDoor event for a long time.

I’m going to start with these doors from the FDR Memorial to remind my American friends of the stakes at risk in our upcoming Elections.

Door representing the hopelessness of many people during the Great Depression

Door to the Soup Kitchen, the only way to survive for many people.

The Republicans and Libertarians have made consistent threats against programs like the ones President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put into place; programs that saved this country from the Great Depression and provided a safety net for millions of Americans, particularly the weakest and most vulnerable of us.

The FDR memorial sits across the Potomac from downtown DC and is just down the road from Arlington Cemetery (which is always on my must visit list.) The memorial is a maze-like series of granite walls representing each of FDR’s four terms in office. Into the walls are carved quotes from his most famous speeches.

The one above says: “We must scrupulously guard the civil rights of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”

FDR and Fala, the only presidential dog to have his own monument.

It’s shocking to contrast what a man in a wheelchair and in dubious health created in both words and deeds in twelve years while for eight years our Republican-held congress has accomplished nothing but repeatedly attack Obama care, fund baseless investigations against the Clintons, and encourage through word and deed citizens to turn against each other with hatred, intolerance and incivility.

I think every American needs to keep in mind why social safety nets were put into place and why any politician seeking to destroy them should be defeated on November 8th. By next Thursday we’ll know. Are we going to go backwards or forwards – what’s your guess?

Apologies for the darkness of the pictures – we were there in the evening.