Well, I guess it's time to pay attention

Election year is upon us. The primaries have started and what happens from here on out actually matters, so I guess it's time to pay attention. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I'm a democratic. I guess I've always been a democrat, but I only changed my official party status from my original choice of unaffiliated around the time we moved into our house (July 2004), so this is my first presidential primary. I was unaffiliated because when I was 18 I felt I didn't really understand the differences between the parties to choose, so not choosing was the more responsible decision at that time. I always voted, no matter what state I was temporiarly inhabiting when an election came around, if I couldn't go to the polls I voted absentee, but never before in a primary. Until this morning I actually thought that I wouldn't have to vote in the primary until the summer. It turns out that really I have to do it next month. So time to pay attention.

Like everyone else in the world I have heard many of the sound bites, seen snippets of the debates, some interviews on the daily show, etc. I whole heartedly no not watch the news, I hate it; it is depressing and life is too short to be depressed on a regular basis. I do listen to NPR almost daily, but my commute usually misses the peak newscasts and instead we hear the interesting stuff. Typically, we hear one interesting story and spend the rest of the commute discussing it so I guess I don't really listen to NPR either. I have formulated rudimentary opinions of the top candidates, but I'm still unsure of who to vote for.

Paul's blog post this morning did prompt me to spend a little time pursuing it more. The glassbooth quiz aligns me most closely with Kucinich (87%). I don't know anything more about him than that, and it's clear to me that he will not be the nominee, so he won't get my vote. Next up was John Edwards (85%) followed closely by Hillary Clinton (83%). Obama and Richardson came in tied at 81% aligning with my views. These were the four I had already narrowed it down to anyways, and a 4 percent span on a survey like this isn't enough to make up my mind. I went to the more detailed results, which tell you how well each candidates views align with your own on the key issues. The only topic that got a complete disagree for all five candidates was gay marriage. No candidate will come out and support same sex marriage, but all support civil unions. I personally don't see the difference, it's just semantics. If a civil union supplies all the same rights as marriage, why can't we just call it marriage? Because it wouldn't be recognized by a church? I wasn't married in a church, does that mean I only have a civil union? I'm a smart gal and I just can't get my head wrapped around the nuance's of this issue. Apples to apples in my book.

So really, all glassbooth proved is that I'm a democrat. Granted they figured it out in 10 minutes and it took me 8 years, but no real new material to work with.

I have 30 days to make a decision on which bubble to fill in.

So I guess it's time to pay some more attention.