The RoadKill Party - One Man, One Vote

I recently took advantage of early voting to cast my ballot to avoid the long lines on election day. You can stroll over on a Saturday and take part in the electoral process with minimal inconvenience. I was once again given pause by how few choices there are on the ballot. Tennessee is quickly becoming a one party state as my mother's beloved party is pretty much toothless and irrelevant in the South.

Actually both parties are irrelevant in my book as neither represents the majority of Americans, those of us who don’t feel comfortable in either extreme wing, which is who the parties have to pander to in order to gain any traction. I read an article last week that most Americans get all their news from one source that reflects their views. Republicans get all their news from Fox News with their tongue in cheek motto that belies their advocate position. Democrats get theirs from MSNBC or CNN. Democrats can’t even agree on one source of news or much of anything else. If the Republicans are the party of NO then the Democrats are the party of fractions and factions.

If it were up to me we would go to a three party system. We would abolish the titles of the parties, which would put an elephant and a donkey out of work, and just call the parties what they are: Left, Right and Roadkill.

I would be in the Roadkill party, the party of down the middle white line fever where compromise and working together to solutions to our national problems might spawn hope. The majority of Americans are right down the middle like a good drive from the first tee, but are under-represented by the parties of the elephant and donkey. They need their own party. The symbol could be an Armadillo with a tire track on its back.

I get impatient with the campaign rhetoric where one candidate claims to be more conservative than the other. I’m bothered by that choice, right or righter. Can being a moderate be such a stain? I’m reminded of arguments from my home state where someone argues he or she is a bigger Texan than someone else. We call that the “All Hat and No Cattle” campaign rhetoric.

The Tea Partiers have eradicated the left and lefter from the conversation and won’t be satisfied until every moderate is driven to ground I suppose. If that happens, the Tea Party can sit smug for a short while until the march of Time catches up with them. The extreme right isn’t having enough babies to still be relevant in the American future.

There is an opportunity that presents itself every so often for me to exercise my party independence. There is a particular state legislator who seems to run unopposed, not because of any particular great job being done but because the opposition party are ghosts or at the very least zombies. I can’t bring myself to vote for this person and the ballot box offers me the luxury of a write in choice.

About eight years ago I started writing in my wife’s name. My wife is a sensible woman though she doesn’t follow politics closely and I think that’s just what we need. The person I’m refusing to vote for isn’t very sensible and follows politics so closely that everything gets skewed.

One of my church members served on the election commission eight years ago and advised my wife she got a vote for this state office. Now, every election cycle I continue my allegiance and vote for Jan.

This year, she returned the favor and wrote in my name. Now I’m the proverbial “One Man, One Vote”.

Just in case any of my readers decide to do the same, let me forewarn that if drafted, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve. But I appreciate the one vote more than anyone can imagine.

It’s one vote that didn’t go to inevitability.