TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

The Naked And The Dread

ADVERTISEMENT

By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: November 2, 2008

Well, you can stall for only so long. Come Tuesday, like it or not, you are going to have to go down to your precinct and pencil in the bubbles.

If reports from some of those who decided to vote early are any indication, it is going to be a long and painful day. I spoke to one early voter who had gone down to the Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Library without really preparing for the size of the ballot.

"I got to the amendments," she said, "and I was struggling with one of them until I realized I was reading it in Spanish, and I don't speak Spanish."

Another early voter told me he didn't realize there were going to be 13 choices on the presidential ticket. He said he looked it over to see if Tampa club owner Joe Redner's name was one of them and was almost surprised he hadn't qualified when so many others had.

I'll be honest. I'm one of those so-called political junkies, and as the national political parties have spent millions on campaigns that have long since sunk into the muck, I've lost interest.

Maybe the unexpected financial crisis has caused the campaigns to shift in midgear, but for the most part, those critical issues that you would hope would be part of the debate have vanished.

Electronic Ooze
I think the Internet has helped to spread the slime around. With the simple pressing of a button, it is now possible to ship out millions of e-mails to voters who have no idea whether there is any substance to any of them.

For a while, it appeared Barack Obama was getting the worst of it, although there was one e-mail that went out a few weeks ago claiming hundreds of people were being healed merely by being touched by Obama. It didn't matter that the story was taken from a spoof. For those who seem to live on the computer, it quickly became gospel.

On the other side, Gov. Sarah Palin found her face pasted onto nude pictures and, my own favorite, her wearing a Stars-and-Stripes bikini and standing poolside brandishing a rifle.

In a related story last week, nudists at the Caliente resort in Pasco County have asked for a clothing-optional voting place. That alone is scary enough to think about, without even considering where they would wear their "I voted" stickers.

The problem is that as bizarre and disappointing as the process has been at times, there are critical choices to be made.

For all the money and all the sound and fury of the national campaigns, it will be those local decisions that will affect your lives directly.

If you don't show up prepared, you will not be able to make at least a fair judgment on some of those wordy and complicated issues at the back of the ballot.

Saving Florida

For example, you have to make your way to the next to the last item to get to the question, "To continue financing environmental land acquisition and protection programs (ELAPP) to preserve environmentally sensitive lands."

In a state and especially a county where politicians and developers have joined forces, this is a program that will help conserve our finite land resources.

Look, this thing is almost over. Set aside a couple of hours, know in advance what you're going to do and show up Tuesday - even if you are a nudist and you have to throw on some shorts and a shirt.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT