No, don’t send in the clowns. They’re already here–and they want you to vote today in the District of Columbia’s non-binding presidential primary. A large voter turnout is supposed to “send the message” that the Founding Fathers were wrong to make DC a federal city run by Congress. Congress has already ceded too much authority to the city–any more and our beloved municipality could come to a standstill, as opposed to functioning marginally, as it now does. Stay home from the polls today! But I am fretting needlessly. The primary is such a hilarious mess (as the WaPo Style section can’t help but show in a delightful report).
Most of the major (read: real) candidates are not on the DC ballot, though that hasn’t prevented the Rev. Al Sharpton from holding rallies and being all over the local news shows in recent days. Lyndon LaRouche is also on the DC ballot. The WaPo notes that he is “a difficult figure to describe, as his theories are flecked with esoteric conspiracies. His Web site describes his theory that Vice President Cheney is one of the ‘Beast-Men.'” Carol Moseley Braun kept her name on the ballot out of respect to DC’s non-voting representative to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton. But she isn’t the only Braun on the ballot. She is joined by Harry Braun (no relation) who advocates making hydrogen from water. (He says President Bush wants to make it from coal and nuclear power.) David Cobb, the Green Party candidate, also on the ballot, says, “Our participation in the primary is another indication of our growing reality as a serious, credible political party.”
Home Rule–for those who believe that the only way to remove snow from city streets is to let it melt.