The Washington State Primary

So, this week we had a micro-election: only one thing to vote for on the ballot, whether to renew a school levy. Naturally I voted for this -- supporting public education is a Good Thing in my book.

Then today came the voter's pamphlet for our next election: the primary for this fall's presidential race. We vote on March 10th -- less than a month away.

The Republican side of this is simple: the only option is to vote for Trump or don't vote at all.

The Democratic side is,  predictably, messier. If anything there's an over-richness of options (rather like the Republican campaigns of 2016 and 2012). Of the twenty-three people who at some point were running for the nomination, thirteen made it this far, or at least were still running at the point when this pamphlet went to press. Ironically among those to have dropped out is Washington state governor Jay Inslee, who wd have been a 'favorite son' candidate if he'd gotten this far.

The candidates who made the ballot are

Michael Bennet
Joe Biden
Michael Bloomberg
Cory Booker
Pete Bettigieg
John Delaney*
Tulsi Gabbard
Amy Klobuchar
Deval Patrick
Bernie Sanders
Tom Steyer
Elizabether Warren
Andrew Yang

At this point my first choice is still in the running despite troubles in Iowa and New Hampshire, and my second choice is still running and doing quite well -- so I can still entertain what-if scenarios wherein one gets the nomination and the other is his or her running mate. We'll see.

I do wish the list had fewer billionaires (as in: none) and fewer old men. It does feel like some of the candidates who don't get the nomination cd make for interesting Cabinet Secretaries. Again, we'll see

--John R.
--current reading: the MURDERBOT series by Martha Wells. didn't know they wrote them like that anymore: highly entertaining.

*I thought I'd been following the campaign fairly close, but admit to not having heard of Delaney before








*among those to have dropped out