It's time to evaluate my choices and make my decisions about the coming elections.  Being in inland Southern California, my primary choices will be in my local House race (Issa / Who Cares), Governor (Whitman / Moonbeam), and US Senator (Fiorina / Ma'am).  In theory, I'm perfectly willing to vote for either party; in practice, in California, voting for a Dem is the same as showering in hydrochloric acid -- incredibly painful, disfiguring, and ultimately fatal.

I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils, so my choice is either to vote for the GOP candidate or sit it out / cast a protest vote.  I would only consider both candidates if they were both good candidates and I had to make a decision about which was better.  As 'good candidate' and 'California Democrat' are mutually incompatible terms, I'll simply evaluate each GOP candidate on their own merits and decide whether they're worth a vote or not.

The House race:  It's always good to be able to get off to an easy start.  Issa is one of the single best House members.  I'd like to see him be even more focused on fiscal issues, have more of a public presence, and bring out the big guns on some major bad actors.  He's on the right path for this, and I have high hopes for his long-term prospects.  Returning Issa to the House is as easy a decision as anyone can ever have in politics.

The race for Governor:  Whitman is about as exciting as a bowl of oatmeal.   The state of California's finances is so bad, however, that her range of potential action is going to be extremely limited.  To her credit, she's attempting to get out in front of certain issues such as public service pensions, and I think she'll be reasonably proactive in trying to deal with fiscal matters.  I'm not thrilled, but I think she's good enough to get my vote.

The Senate race:  Fiorina is an enigma.  Her tenure at HP was stormy, to say the least, and there are as many opinions on her performance as there are opinionators.  Unlike many, I'm not going to fault her for HP's stock price performance, as her tenure coincided with the collapse of the tech bubble.  She has real fiscal chops; the question is whether she will use them for good (reform) or evil (obfuscation / status quo).  She has the potential to be a brilliant Senator.  She could also be a flop of epic proportions.  Being GOP, she'll be thrown out on her ass in 6 years unless she is brilliant, so I'm going to vote for her and hope for the best.

So there you have it -- GOP votes across the board.  Note that I'm giving no consideration whatsoever to social issues.  This is because I don't give two shits about them.  On the margins, as a libertarian, I'd go for someone who is socially liberal, but at this time social issues are completely dwarfed by fiscal ones.  As none of these candidates have any draconian social positions, my evaluation of them is based strictly on their likely fiscal performance.

I think I'll be 3/3 this year, but it's possible I could be 1/3.  Issa is a sure thing.  Is anyone even running against him?  I didn't bother checking, as I'd vote for Issa over the ghost of Hayek -- that's just how much I like the guy.

Posted by: Hermit Dave at 12:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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