Right Wing Nation

Barely two months after the last of the election signs from that last election finally came down, they started sprouting up again–and they’re everywhere. Great. And whoever heard of a primary where you have to do more research on candidates than a regular election? Well, that’s exactly what we have coming up Tuesday. Take a look (the Republican ballot):

Justice of the Supreme Court

Paul P. Panepinto
Maureen E. Lally-Green
Mike Krancer

Judge of the Superior Court

Bruce F. Bratton
Cheryl Lynn Allen
Jacqueline O. Shogan

Judge of the Court of Common Pleas

R. Bruce Manchester
Steven F. Lachman (This is the bozo that wants to send criminals to knitting class instead of locking them up. His flyers say he’s an Independent, so what’s he doing on the Republican ballot?)
Jonathan Grine
Pamela A. Ruest
Stephen P. Sloane

All I know is I’m voting for the judge who wants to toss criminals in jail and throw away the key. I’ll have to do some looking around to figure out who that is (for each race).

County Commissioner

Sue Mascolo
Chris Exarchos
Steven Dershem
Andrew A. Sicree

I’m skipping the ones that have only one candidate running.

Sheriff

Doug Kalmbach
Paul Stamm
Bill Kuzio

If you read this, you know how I’m voting in the general election. Course, this is the primary, so he’s not on the ticket. I like Kalmbach’s platform, but I’m going to find out which one is the idiot who criticized Nau for not buying new vehicles and not vote for him. I figure I can wean the choices down by elimination. And the Democrats have the good sense not to run anybody against Nau.

Register of Wills

Do we really need a special office just to handle wills? In Indiana, the County Clerk does that. And from all the flyers and visits to the house, you’d think this was some kind of important race. Sheesh. Having said that, I’m voting for Gable, only because I don’t care who wins, and I’ve met him–he’s the guy who explained the bizarre way local government works in this state.

Kim Barton
Charles R. Gable
Mary Lisko

District Judge

Drew Clemson
Leslie Dutchcot
Robert W. Stewart
Craig Q. Rose
Lynn Herman

Stop the presses! Lynn Herman was the state rep when we moved here. He voted for the pay raise, saw the writing on the wall, decided not to run–and then (surprise, surprise) his handpicked successor lost the election. So now, he’s running for district judge–I guess because judges can keep their pay raises (or so the state supreme court decided). And get this. His campaign slogan is, “Who better to judge violations of our laws than the person who wrote them?” Stop it! You’re killin me, Lynn baby! Idiot.

School Director at Large

There are nine running, and I can only vote for five. Now, I wouldn’t usually care much, except for the crap the current school board has been pulling (see here for everything you need to know about the high school scandal, and more). There’s a story about the candidates in the local rag. All I know is that I want the incumbent bozos out.

You’re going to love the school district referendum (for the reasons behind it, here:

Act 1 School District Referendum

“Do you favor the State College area school district imposing an additional 0.7% earned income tax? The revenue generated from the increased tax rate will be used to reduce school district taxes on qualified residential properties by an estimated $378.00. The current school district earned income tax rate is 0.95%.”

Guess how I’m going to vote. Go ahead. Guess.

UPDATE: Right after I posted this, I got email from the (hold my nose) State GOP, which says, “REMEMBER TO VOTE LALLY-GREEN AND KRANCER FOR SUPREME COURT; AND BRATTON AND SHOGAN FOR SUPERIOR COURT NEXT TUESDAY, MAY 15th, 2007,” and yes, in all caps. I guess that makes things easier–well, a little. I’ll just have to figure out which of the state selected candidates to vote against.