In which I make choices

Having looked for transcripts of the two Democratic primary debates and discovered to my faint disgust that they did not exist, I spent the morning digging through both Pat Hackett and Yatish Joshi’s websites.  Accordingly, I’ve decided that while I’d be perfectly happy for either of them to win the nomination, I’ll be voting for Hackett in the primary.   The main things that swung my decision?  Gun control is listed first on Hackett’s “issues” page, and while I’m much more abolitionist than she is, I’m much more abolitionist than absolutely everyone and she has a pretty well-thought-out and achievable plan.  In general, I feel like Pat’s priorities match mine more closely than Yatish’s do at this time.  In addition, personally, if you ask me to pick between the businessman and the adjunct professor I’m going to choose the professor every single time.

The only other St. Joseph County race of note is the county sheriff’s office.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t think too hard about a sheriff primary, but something about the tone of one of the candidates’ ads around town has really rubbed me wrong, and I’ve decided to vote for Bill Redman in the primary.  In this case his issues page and his opponent’s are not all that far apart, but in general I think I’ll vote for the guy whose background is in D.A.R.E. rather than the one whose career path went from narcotics to homicide to SWAT and who brags about being sniper trained on his site.  There is a third candidate, but I feel like if you’re running for office in 2018 and you can’t be bothered to put together a website at all then I’m justified in ending my consideration of your candidacy right then and there.  I suspect just from the volume of yard signs and roadside advertisements and such that this particular race won’t be close (and not in my candidate’s favor) but there you have it.  I may go ahead and go vote tomorrow; we’ll see.

I have read two really good books recently, and while this isn’t the post for book reviews, they’re probably coming.  In the meantime, check out Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland, and Void Black Shadow, by Corey J. White.