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Bill Higgins for Democratic Precinct Committeeperson, 23rd Precinct, Naperville Township, Dupage County, Illinois.
This is what democracy looks like. More of us should be practicing it. (Me included.)
Oh, cool! I'm on my way to vote now, but I'm in Cook county, so I can't vote for Bill, dang. Instead I have a variety of crooks and cronies to choose from.
That's what you need: one of the Heterodyne Boys to clean things up. Huzzah indeed!
Well, THIS endorsement I can wholeheartedly second! I take it, Bill, that your opponents for this office did not blanket the airwaves with ads pointing out that you comment on Making Light, or you would have had to drop out of the race in utter shame at associating with such a band of poetry-spewing Lovecraft-parodying lunatics.
Xopher @ 5... You forgot to include that Bill also has been immortalized as a mad scientist in Girl Genius. What will his opponents make of that?
Should I try to get elected as a delegate at our precinct caucus tonight? Would that satisfy you?
Best of luck, Bill. As a former city councillor, and now a regional convenor in the Scottish Liberal Democrats, I absolutely endorse Patrick's comments. Getting stuck in to the actual business of democracy can be time-consuming and frustrating at times, but it can also be very rewarding and not a little educational. It's also infinitely better than bitching about how you don't like the electoral choices in front of you. I wish you every success.
Just sent off an e-mail to some friends in Naperville, recommending they vote for Bill.
For what it's worth, I put on my CERT vest and went to protect a local firestation, acting as polling station, this morning from the ravening hordes of ... voters? coming to pillage the firestation. Mostly we stood around and told each other wild tales of heroic (mis)deeds, and waved people trying to bang their way in the front that they had to come around back. That polling place and the one where I voted later said the body count was 'way up. HUZZAH!
And my grammer she ain't so good. I've been up since yesterday, stubbornly fighting software. I won. But my prooffrreading skills are shot.
Yay, Bill!
"It's an endless, glamorless, thankless job." (And I was darn proud to be one of them.)
Thank you, Patrick, and thanks to the rest of you for your very kind words of encouragement.
The Democrats in Dupage County sent out letters, and followed them up with phone calls, asking for volunteers. I figured maybe it was time I did something to help.
Go Bill! I hope to be able to congratulate you tomorrow night at dinner!
None, really, but that scarcely keeps me from blogging about it.
The Dupage Election Commission has a relaxed attitude about posting results from the committeeman balloting, and who can blame them?
Democratic ballots exceeded Republican ones for the first time ever around here.
The most interesting local race, next congressional district over, is the struggle for Denny Hastert's seat in the 14th District. The former Speaker of the House resigned abruptly in November[1]. This triggered a peculiar double primary.
In the regular primary, of course, voters select their party's nominee to run for the House of Representatives in November.
On top of that, a special primary was needed to select candidates to fill out the rest of Hastert's term (between now and November). The special election will be held in March; the primary was held yesterday because, hey, you're already in the voting booth anyway. Slogan: Vote twice, without moving to Chicago!
Candidates who were already running for the November election scrambled to get new petitions to also run in the special primary. For the entertaining results, Google for Hastert+Foster+Laesch. Things are not entirely settled as I write this, but it's looking like Big Physics vs. Big Ice Cream.
[1] Which was not exactly helpful to Fermilab in the astonishing budgetary trainwreck on Capitol Hill in December. $52 million disappeared from Fermilab's budget overnight, one-quarter through the fiscal year. Furloughs for all, amounting to a 10% pay cut for the year, PLUS layoffs of 200 people.
In #16, TNH writes:
...News?
Check your moderation queue; I just posted a URL-heavy reply.
Bill, Patrick: Not only did I get elected as a delegate to the county convention (which means I could in theory make it all the way to the national convention in Denver; go, me) but I was one of the only two precinct members who gave in and browbeat ourselves into being elected precint committeepersons.
You bastards!
I swear I previewed that comment. "precinct" committeeperson, of course.
I swear I previewed that comment. "precinct" committeeperson, of course.
It's not the easiest of words to spell.
So? Moderation queueueueue demons? What's the verdict?
I swear I previewed that comment. "precinct" committeeperson, of course.
It's not the easiest of words to spell.
Were they succinct at the precinct? Was democracy sacrosanct?
If, like me, you're not especially patient, click on Mr. Higgins' view all by to see his message that is in limbo.
You'd need to use the other view all by for that.
Serge@ 23
Were they succinct at the precinct? Was democracy sacrosanct?
Well, I thought this kind of language was extinct, but Serge is so precise he's distinct.
#26 ::: Ginger ::: (view all by) ::: February 06, 2008, 08:54 PM:
Serge@ 23
>i>Were they succinct at the precinct? Was democracy sacrosanct?
Well, I thought this kind of language was extinct, but Serge is so precise he's distinct.
Some cases like these I have ranked, the language is clearly extant.
#27 ::: Fragano Ledgister :::
Some cases like these I have ranked, the language is clearly extant.
What's your rationale for ranking? Or it is based on instinct?
Is a sextant tantamount to a paramour?
Ginger #28:
My rationale for ranking, is based on some forms of banking, which is not as loud as clanking, but has been most clearly inked.
If you think that I'm just thanking, those who have till now been tanking, or else just vainly wanking, well, then, your line has been kinked.
Serge #29: Only if you're Mario Vargas Llosa.
Joel - Thanks! I checked the link in Preview, but alas, the gremlins got me. Again.
Coming soon on the SciFi Channel... Tania vs the Gremlins...
Fragano Ledgister @ 30
My rationale for ranking, is based on some forms of banking, which is not as loud as clanking, but has been most clearly inked.
If you think that I'm just thanking, those who have till now been tanking, or else just vainly wanking, well, then, your line has been kinked.
Your method of thanking/ those us of not franking/ money is clearly banking/ on getting beyond the spanking
Of the markets today.
While the stocks go tanking, I'm over here angsting, quietly flanking, and waiting for the screen to go blanking.
Serge @ 29: Is a sextant tantamount to a paramour?
One of my favorite lines of all time is in Drugstore Cowboy, when Matt Dillon tells his gang, "We gave her the drugs that she O.D.'d on! That's paramount to murder in this state!"
It was so subtle it was a minute after it had flashed by me before I realized what was wrong with it, and how perfectly it encapsulated how the speaker believes he's all that.
Richard 35: I thought a paramount was a sidecar for a horse.
Xopher - does that mean that a tantamount is a sidecar for an elephant?
Serge - Yup, I'd probably bathe them and go on snackfood binges with the little buggers at about 2 AM. We've all seen where that leads... Chaos!
Tania @ 37... snackfood binges with the little buggers at about 2 AM
Isn't it 2am for half of the year where you live?
#36, #37--I'm thinking of that fine old frontier American noun "catamount", and considering the size of the average domestic cat, and...
Bad idea. Even if they were big enough, they'd just lie down and take naps as it suited them, when they weren't deciding it was more interesting to try and get to where they were going by climbing up onto the couch, leaping over to an end table, and then up onto a bookshelf.
Unofficial election results are available.
In my precinct, running unopposed, I received 204 votes.
The Republican precinct committeeman, also running unopposed, received 163 votes.
County-wide, 43% of the 549,621 registered voters turned out. Of those voting, 109,132 pulled Republican ballots (19%), and 132,434 (24%) took Democratic ballots. So the D/R ratio is 1.21. (In Precinct 23, 1.25.)
Dupage County has always been dominated by Republicans in my lifetime. I am told that not one single Democrat holds any office here.
The total turnout in 2004 was 25% of registered voters; in 2000, 27%, in 1996, 38%.
Bill, I've decided that you were solely responsible for the increased turnout. Good work! And congrats.
I should point out, since it's less than obvious, that Chicago and Cook County are overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats; Dupage and the "collar counties" have been very Republican.
Rural Illinois leans Republican, but there are so many people in the northeast corner of the state that Democratic presidential candidates usually take Illinois's electoral votes.
Tania at 37,
A tantemount is a sidecar for an ant.
Nancy C. Mittens @ 44:
A tantemount is a sidecar for an ant.
Or for someone's aunt.
And on no account should my grandaunt get in a sidecar with her paramount paramour -- it's just a stunt -- so, exeunt.
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