I'm not used to this

I'm finally getting to vote in a presidential primary with an actual contest going on. I just got a phone call from a gravelly-voiced someone alleging to be from the state's Election Board wanting to know if I had decided who I was going to vote for for President. Shouldn't the Election Board know that I"m not voting for president in the upcoming election? I'm voting for the nominee for president. Not the same thing.

A few days ago, I got a phone poll call, from an outsourced commercial polling outfit I'd never heard of. I couldn't decide who was sponsoring the poll; it was full of questions about whether I was more worried about losing civil liberties or terrorist attacks (the former, for the record) and whether I was worried about a decline in morality and relations between church and state. One question asked if any members of my family are gay or lesbian. The poll clearly didn't envision a lesbian respondent.

The AP poll got me, too. I love polls, which amuses Politica.

A local poll, focused on our Congressional primary, had a pollster who had been trained on all the candidates' names, but otherwise was reading very haltingly (as was the outsourced pollster asking the church/state questions earlier). I'm not impressed by people who can't read the forms properly. I wonder what that does to poll results, actually.

Earlier today, a volunteer from Hillary's campaign called me to find out if they could count on my vote. I'm leaning that way, I said, but still not quite sure. "I know people say it would be great to have an African-American president," the volunteer replied, "but wouldn't it be great to have the first woman president in our lifetime?" This is the sort of thing that makes me think I liked Hillary for president better before she started campaigning. I was going to just get off the phone and get back to work, but I thought, no, I should say something. I pointed out that it wasn't necessary to play a desire to have an African-American president against having a woman president: the categories aren't exclusive (in the abstract), and I don't want to cast my vote in the primary on either gender or race. Why not have volunteers say something substantive about what Hillary would do as president? The reason I'm leaning towards her is her health care plan. But her volunteer call has got me feeling crabby about her campaign. That's no way to educate likely voters, and it simply promotes an oversimplified and unhelpful view of both race and gender. Vote for me because I'm a woman? That doesn't get too far with me.

That said, we may try keeping CG up late to see Hillary at a rally here on Saturday. She'd be thrilled, and even has a little Hillary shirt to wear to it.