Politics

For fall vacation this year Mark and I drove to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. On the car ride there we listened to talk radio. Of course with the presidential election coming up next year politics was a hot topic. Mark and I began to talk about the different candidates and I was so embarrassed when I couldn't think of the Vice President's name! I also realized that I didn't know anything about the current candidates for the next election. I felt totally uneducated and was ashamed that somewhere during my residency I had stopped caring about anything going on around me. I have never had a real sense of civic duty but this was a little extreme.
So Mark and I have decided to learn more about the candidates and about politics in general. For me this is mostly so that I don't look totally idiotic at social dinners and when talking to my father-in-law. I didn't really know where to start so I googled 2008 presidential election. Most of the information I got was off of Wikepedia. I learned that "incumbent" means someone running who is already in office. I also learned that I may not want to vote for Hillary simply because she is a woman.
The next chapter in my political education involved local politics. In the weekly Portland paper "The Phoenix" there was an article on the local candidates for city council and other offices. I knew this was a biased way to educate myself but being a young person reading a young person's newspaper I figured their opinions probably would be similar to my own. So on Nov 6th I hit the polls and basically voted for everyone they recommended. I also voted no on the question about starting a new casino in Maine. I voted yes to more money for the schools and land conservation. Mark said that my paycheck this week will be a little smaller because of the way I voted. I said, I guess that makes me a Democrat.
My political education is just starting and I am looking forward to learning more. All I can say so far is that it felt good to step behind the voting curtain and actually participate in the world going on around me.