My partner will be out of town on Virginia's primary day: an interesting discovery.

[CorpGovActivist]

On the week of the Potomac Primary (DC/MD/VA), my partner is scheduled to be out of town for some sort of "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you" tech training.

:party: <----- at my house, while he's away

This dawned on him last night. So, as promised, I looked up the info for him today.

Lo and behold, http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Deadlines,_News,_Events/Press_Releases/Index.html">Virginia has an open primary, and the deadline for absentee ballots has not passed. :woohoo:

:think:

Periodically, I come under peer pressure from family and friends to come out of the closet. Again.

Come home, these Sirens sing. You were raised in a UMWA Democratic family. You've never nailed up a sign for a Republican. You've busted your thumb nailing them up for Democrats.

"What happened to you at college, anyway?!?"

The easiest way to get most of them to lay off is to say something like: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hillary+young+republican+wellesley">"Well, like so many others, I missed that pre-frosh innoculation.

:rofl:

But, their scattered seeds have not fallen on stony ground. Like the crocuses here in Virginia (already up, if you know where to look each year), the delicate shoots have peeked out.

I've toyed with changing it to (I). It's really the most accurate label, and has been all along.

Discussing this in the past, I've said http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2393596&mesg_id=2393596">So, no, Mom: I'm not ready to play Red Rover with my party registration. But my vote this year? I plan to "come on over" in most races.

I've explained that: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2657330&mesg_id=2657330">I don't like surrounding myself with only like-minded folks.

I've explained how my grandfather was aghast to learn that - by voting a straight ticket his whole life - he'd never voted for a "good guy" he knew and liked, personally, as Commissioner of Agriculture. It was inconceivable to my Paw Paw that his good friend - who'd been so effective and so helpful to my grandfather's rural farming - this "good guy" in my grandfather's book, could also be a Republican. It was rare for me to get one over politically on my grandfather. The day I broke that to him, well, that's a red letter day I plan to tease him about, over a brew, when I meet him in the great hereafter.

:evilgrin: :toast: :evilgrin:

But, man, is DU persuasive, especially when overlaid on all that pressure from my family and close friends.

And to think that all this time, all my family needed to do was look up the primary rules. They know I groove on the Parliamentarianish exceptions to rules, as well as the rules themselves. An option that expands, rather than contracts, my decision tree? Sign me up. I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I">Elizabeth I was among the http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22elizabeth+i%22+decision+dither+decisive">smartest decision-tree expanders in human history. I never get tired of hearing some new example of how she drove her ministers nuts with "dithering," only to pull out some magical option that they could not conceive.

In short, in the here and now, I have the luxury of leaving the ol' registration as is this week, evaluating the outcome of Tsunami Tuesday, and then voting in whichever primary I choose in Virginia, based on where I think it will be most effective for the benefit of the likely Dem nominee.

Then, after the primary, I'll think some more about what letter belongs after my name on the rolls here. Shhhh! Don't tell my family, but the winning, rules-bound argument has been found (I'm surprised my younger brother, especially, didn't think of this tack).

My mom's birthday is right before the General, after all.

I can almost hear her quoting with delight: "Train up a child in the way he should go ..." and though he may depart from them, blah, blah, blah.

:eyes:

And my partner has already signed up for his absentee ballot: Democratic.

- Dave