I saw the headline of the newspaper as it screamed out at me from the little box that sells 10 copies of the paper for like $.75 or something (it’s a great deal for those who need multiple copies for clipping graduation and engagement notices and such – just ask Ms. Cheap). The news was that Bob Clement and Karl Dean are the two guys that will face each other in a runoff election for the title of Music City Mayor.

So, let’s see … I can vote for Bob Clement whose pedigree could not possibly be more Democratic. That might be kind of fun in that I could fill in another page in my “Political Offices held by the Clement family in Tennessee” scrapbook. Or I can vote for Karl Dean whose major political accomplishment seems to have been that he’s the candidate endorsed by The Tennessean. Kind of like John Kerry’s ad nauseum reminders that he served in Viet Nam, the only thing I remember about the Dean campaign is that the paper endorsed him. Not a particularly strong reason for Conservatives to vote for him.

What’s a Conservative to do, I ask you? I suppose I could sit out the runoff. Problem with that is that if you don’t vote you don’t get to bitch.

Perhaps I could try and apply The Fairness Doctrine to the issue and demand there be equal representation in the voting booth. Maybe I could use the spiffy new audio ballot option I saw yesterday and claim that there were no Conservative options and force the issue.

Or there’s always the tried and true “Torricelli Two Step” method and demand that a Conservative be added to the ballot as it’s just not fair that we don’t have one on there and what’s the big deal with election laws anyway?

Hrmmm … course there’s the issue of deadlines and such. I probably don’t have enough time to accomplish either of those things. So, I guess I’ll just continue looking at each of the candidates and vote for the one that most closely would reflect my values.

Thinking that, after all, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be done?

Blue Collar Muse