Polling for County Commission Candidate. Interesting results.

[Pacifist Patriot]

Last night I participated in issue polling for a democratic candidate to our county commission. The current commission is 100% republican and has a horrible reputation. The chairman is under ethics investigation and the broadcasts of their meetings on government access television would put a sitcom based on county government to shame. A recent email from the chairman to the local progressive alliance looked like it could have been written by my third grader. No capital letters and no attention to punctuation. That doesn't even begin to describe the sophmoric content.

At any rate, we were calling supervoters of all party registrations. Every single person rated the issues of vandalism, juvenile crime and law enforcement as an extremely low priority. Curbing urban sprawl and unchecked development, supporting the park system and water quality rated top priority across the board. Didn't matter about party affiliation. All the same.

Everyone supported an impact fee on developers for roads and schools, disagreed with the phrase "growth pays for itself" and laughed out loud at the thought of a politician running on the platform of "no new taxes."

When asked if party affiliation influenced their vote, it was split down the middle. Some people said yes, some people said no. What was interesting was the people who said yes. The people who said no left it at that. The people who said yes all volunteered that they would either vote Democrat or vote against a Republican. Even the registered Republicans!

To quote one of my Republican pollees last night, "the arrogance and unprofessionalism of the current commission will be the local Republican party's downfall." Damn I hope he's right!

I came home in a better mode than when I left. I think the Republicans are in for a HUGE surprise come November. Wonder if they have the machines set to swing a landslide the other way.

And yes, I know our minor foray into polling last night may not be a statistically valid sampling, but it warmed my heart.

[patrice]

1. Some Kansas Conservatives - Republicans - came to our 9/11 Sunday

demonstration. They were 9/11 experts and in support of more independent inquiry about 9/11 questions. We shouted "Bush Knew" at the passing traffic; they seemed to like that message.

There are many people on "the other side" with definitely low skill levels and limited information. Their skills are so bad, they could not have succeeded without favoritism.

Eventually all of the lies catch up with you, because the truth is, by definition, inevitable. Many people really do want the truth.