The Franchise

[captainsblog]

For some reason, the word "franchise" always makes me think of Tom Seaver, or secondarily of Subway restaurants, before it evokes voting. Except today.

I wasn't there long enough to notice my voter number. They cram several election districts into the tiniest possible space in the nearby elementary school- this year, the booths were on the auditorium stage- and the adjacent table had quite a lineup, but us 12th ED peeps got right in and out.

As usually happens, I voted for a couple of Republicans: the opponent of the Democratic judicial candidate whose campaign manager spammed the entire Erie County Bar Association mailing list last night (sorry, but my hatred of spam exceeds even my hatred of Republicans), and one other who I ain't sayin' except it was relatively local.

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Not much else to share until results come in, other than the chance to plagiarize myself in repeating a couple of election-related comments I posted on other blogs this morning:

This one, in response to a Friend's reaction to the minor-party VP debate the other night:

Am I the only one who finds it odd that the Libertarians are running a bookie as their vice presidential candidate?

I can just hear him on the Hot Line to Barr's office:

Hi, Bob, it's Wayne! And I've got the guaranteed surefire foreign policy Pick of the Year on a recorded message at 1-800-WAR-ROOT! Heavily favored Iran is only a ten-point favorite against Israel in this key Middle Eastern Division matchup, but WE have the inside information that makes this worth parlaying all your other winnings!


 And this one, recalling the year of my first Presidential election, when a friend-of-a-friend in Massachusetts managed to pervert the polling process:

My best friend in college had an old friend from high school days named Kevin Smith. No, not that one. Kevin wound up at UMass, and in the nascent days of the 1980 presidential primaries, some pollsters came to Amherst to scope out the students' preferences.

Kevin, apparently, had always had a thing about how fun it would be if game show host Jack Barry got elected President. "Should I invade Iran? ::spins:: Joker, Joker, Devil. Oops, better not. How about a tax cut? ::spins:: Joker, Joker, JOKER!"

(The resulting Reagan administration pretty much ran like that, only with astrologers.)

So he got all his friends to join him in telling the pollster that they were all voting for Jack Barry. I never did see a story about it, but it always warmed my heart to know there were such subversives out there.