Tuesday, November 04, 2008

How to Vote Today (in order)

President: Barack Obama. Our best hope to become a positive, progressive country.

Governor: Jay Nixon. Solid competence in the Governor's Mansion.

Lieutenant Governor: Sam Page. He is freakishly well qualified for the position.

Secretary of State: Robin Carnahan. Not just the best political name in the state, she has also shown herself to be a great Secretary of State.

Treasurer: Clint Zweifel. Nerdiness is a virtue in a treasurer.

Attorney General: Chris Koster. Not because he is a Democrat, but because he will be a better Attorney General.

U.S. Representative: Emanuel Cleaver. His influence will be even greater as the Democrats expand their control in the House of Representatives.

State Representative: Jason Kander. Unopposed, which is kind of unfortunate to those of us who enjoyed watching his innovative, hard-working and clean campaign astound everyone with a huge margin of victory against two fine opponents. What would he have done against a Republican?

Prosecuting Attorney: Jim Kanatzar. Unopposed - he is doing a great job.

Sheriff: Mike Sharp. The general election has been as low-key as the primary was heated. Mike will do a competent job and seek advice from good people.

Judicial Ballot. Retain each of them. They really are good judges, focused on applying law to facts and not getting caught up in party politics. They are a demonstration of the strength and virtues of the Missouri Plan. (By the way, as a Democrat, it could be argued that I should be urging that you vote against the judges who happen to be Republican, on the theory that a Democratic governor could appoint judges more to my liking as replacements. But those of us who support the Missouri Plan want good judges, not political cronies - not even our political cronies.)

Constitutional Amendment #1: No. This "English-only" proposal is not only unnecessary, un-American and hateful, it puts all of us in danger.

Constitutional Amendment #4: No. This technical amendment is the subject of a stealth campaign run by the wealthy interests seeking $20 million of our tax dollars. The KC Star has resorted to blatantly lying about what the Amendment even says. If you ever need an example of Missouri political corruption, this sneaky theft will serve.

Proposition A: No. The casino interests have lied to us from the moment they set their view on siphoning the money of Missourians to gaming corporations. They agreed to loss limits, and they are making plenty of money with them. Their cynical use of schools to cover their immoral behavior is despicable.

Proposition B: Yes. Improved home health care and improved working conditions for the people who deliver it. Only a knucklehead or someone who is making money off the status quo could vote against it.

Proposition C: Yes. Let's get Missouri out in front of the renewable energy industrial revolution. A tiny investment that could pay huge dividends.

Light Rail: No. I sympathize with those who think we need to do something, but this is the wrong thing to do. We cannot afford to blow a billion bucks on a starter line that will take too few people too few places, without any plan to make it into a robust rail system.

Labels:

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Vote yes on light rail! We can't delay any further on getting this city ready for the future - a future in which one person, one car cannot be the predominate way of getting around.

Other than that, Dan, I agree with your recommendations.

11/04/2008 7:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sam Page still hasn't responded to my e-mail.

11/04/2008 8:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you could have saved a lot of time and just told people to vote for all the Democrats...

I had a long conversation in the voting line this morning with a member of the light rail committee -- it seems that traditionally, federal funding has never been made available for a grand scale regional type program - -that the only way to get the federal funding is to do the starter line first. If you disagree with the idea of light rail at all, then vote against it. But if you think it is a viable option at all -- this starter route is the necessary first step.

11/04/2008 9:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Only if you are willing to gamble with poor people's tax money on a longshot that won't accomplish anything.

11/04/2008 9:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I usually agree with you Dan but not on light rail. It has a huge plan behind, it even says so on the ballot. The mayor and council couldn't get over their power struggle in time to work out a massive regional plan, and I don't think the council will ever let that happen in one fell swoop. Also, they promised the city after rejecting Chastain's iniative that they would have a revised plan on the ballot in two years, this is it. If we don't approve this there's no way the council or any of the people the mayor had to personally talk to are ever going to let another version of this get on the ballot any time soon.

If this fails do you think the bigwigs and the council are going to be in favor of putting a bigger version of this on the ballot?

11/04/2008 10:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't believe you are against light rail. Hurray for you!

11/04/2008 11:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is that a straight Democratic ticket? Shocking.

11/04/2008 7:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kanatszar is doing a great job!

Of keeping politics in the JaCo prosectors office.

I will tell you later about how he arranged to get fired a great young assistant prosecutor so he could get one of his buddies in.

That is rampant in JaCo.

Who ya kiddin, sport.

The BAR is drunk with self serving power.

Agent of Goldstein

11/05/2008 3:55 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home