So I got an e-mail yesterday from Bill Lipton (director of the NYS Working Families Party), detailing the “…major win. Not for the Working Families Party, not for Governor Andrew Cuomo, but for the working families of the state of New York.” Basically, Andy supposedly said some shit that he may or may not have said before and promised to be a good boy and act like a progressive. Yep, that’s a victory.

There was link in the e-mail to “let us know what you think about the endorsement” and so I did. I basically said “bye-bye.” The output of the form of course went to a donation page where I attempted to donate $0.00, but they wouldn’t let me. I considered donating 2¢ saying “here’s my two cents, assholes,” but that seemed like too much trouble.

SPeaking of too much trouble, now I have to go about changing my voter registration. You can’t just switch parties in NY, you have to fill out a whole new registration form and mail it in. Yeah, mail. Well, I guess you can deliver it to the BOE personally if you want. Fortunately, since I don’t live on Shelter Island, I can just put it in my mailbox and raise the little red flag for the mail person to come and collect it (but she doesn’t walk door to door, she drives a truck ‘cuz it can be a long way between houses out here).

So now it’s time to choose a party to affiliate with. Democrats are out. We’re lucky to get one Democrat running for anything out here, so primary voting isn’t an issue for local elections, and who really gives a crap if I have the honor of voting for Hillary in 2016? Hell, I voted for her last time, so she’s probably better off without me.

I suppose I could register as a Republican and try to vote for whoever appears to be the least threatening when it comes to the general election, but I really just can’t see myself walking in to the firehouse in September and when they ask which party having to say “Republican” out loud.

The Conservative Party is out, too. I actually do consider myself conservative – just not the way those people define it. I think you should be able to do whatever you want to do as long as you don’t bother anybody else while you’re doing it, I think we have a responsibility to conserve our natural resources and treat the planet (and each other) with respect, and think that marriage should be between one person and another person (though if you want to three or more, what the hell, that’s your business – good luck if you can afford it, I guess), I think you should keep your religion to yourself (or you have no right getting all bent out of shape when I tell you what I think), I think that corporations are most definitely not people and have none of the rights imbued to them, I think that money does not equate to speech (free speech means you get to go stand on the corner and say whatever you want, it does not mean that you get to yell so loud that nobody else can be heard and it certainly doesn’t mean you get to buy more access to the people that run the country than poor folks get), I think we’re all in this world together and we’d better start fucking acting like it, I think there is an implicit social contract between the people and the government that requires the government to work for the benefit of all the people (and that includes providing healthcare and education – funded by income tax, not property taxes, plus school buses should have to stop for me, not the other way around), I think that the people should have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures (I think that one’s even written down somewhere) and I think that if you join a militia or have to kill shit to feed your family, you can have a fucking gun (preferably a muzzle loader) as long as you stay the hell away from me with the damn thing, ‘cuz if you shoot me or my dog I’m gonna beat you over the head with it.

And if they’d just go ahead and legalize pot already, I’m sure I could think up a few more things.

Anyhow, so I guess that leaves the Independence Party, the Green Party, the “Other” party, or the “No” party. So I guess I’ll have to go Green. They have almost zero local presence in the town councils and county legislature and all that. But at least I’ll never have to worry that they’ll endorse a weasel like Governor Snotball (and their actual candidate is a local guy – transplant from San Francisco – who’s a good lefty and a teamster who unload unloads trucks for UPS).