September 6, 2000

In two months, we'll start the 2004 campaign

Soon our long ordeal will be over. The pain, the cost, the divisiveness, brother fighting against brother will soon be behind us. In only two months, on November 7, it will be finished, for better or for worse. I refer, of course, not to our great civil war, but to our latest presidential campaign, a campaign which has stretched out so interminably, longer than many of our wars. If either that Son-of-a-Bush or that Bore-of-a-Gore were of the stuff of greatness, it might have been worthwhile. But if either man has the makings of a Roosevelt, a Washington or a Lincoln, or even a Harry Truman, it's not obvious from this corner. Neither man, in fact, is likely to rise much above the level of Millard Fillmore or Rutherford B. Hayes. If there wasn't more at stake than these two choices themselves, I might even go for one of my three favorite write-in choices, Mickey, Minnie or Goofy.

His governance of the state of Texas doesn't give Bush much to be proud of, nor does the way in which he's accumulated wealth. Even most of us who favor the death penalty in principle are repelled by Texas-style executions, which make up in quantity what they lack in quality. The death penalty is not something to use lightly or carelessly. For a number of other Texas situations, the question is not "who gets the credit?", but who must accept responsibility for the disasters? Just read the sardonic comments of Molly Ivins.

I'll vote for Gore, not because he rides a white stallion with vigor and verve, but because most of his decisions and appointments will result in fewer disasters than those of George W. Bush.

I refuse to throw away my vote on Ralph Nader or John Hagelin or, worse yet, Harry Browne, for that would be, in effect, a vote for Bush.

Coming closer to home, we have two elections right here in Pacifica. The North Coast County Water District, which extends very slightly past the borders of Pacifica to include two tiny mail precincts to our south, is having the closest thing to a non-election there can be. I plan to vote for Chris Hawkins, an appointed incumbent, and Mason Brown, who's been on the board off and on for quite a few years. The third candidate is a person I've never met, nor did I ever hear of him in any context before he filed. I haven't made up my mind about the city council election. That decision will have to come some time in the future.

Two county-wide measures appear on the ballot. One would tie Supervisors salaries to those of Superior Court judges. I think I'll vote against that, only because I find no reasonable connection between the salaries of judges and supervisors. Perhaps a Supervisor ought to be getting ten times a Judge's salary. Or one tenth. Let's not build in an automatic salary escalator shooting to the moon on gossamer wings, with no way to stop or even pin down responsibility for any given raise.

Paul Azevedo has been involved in making Pacifica political choices since he joined the Pacifica Democrats in 1963, a month after he arrived here. That political club will celebrate its 51st anniversary in October. Paul's e-mail address is reactor@wenet.net