Before the Blog: Write In Whozat!

In March, we saw Melissa Etheridge in concert at a club in Washington, DC. Our fan club tickets got us early entry, so we - once again - ended up within feet of the stage. This stage was much lower than usual - about waist height - so we were even closer to her than before. The concert was incredible, as usual.

She was much more political than we've ever seen her be in concert - she talked about her recent marriage, and then went into a whole bit about, "Or, in some newspapers, my 'marriage.'" (with big, exaggerated, "finger quotes")

She played "Silent Legacy," "Scarecrow" and "Tuesday Morning" back to back, in what I refer to as the "pissed off queer portion of the show," and ended the concert with "Giant."

Since the suspension of Howard Dean's presidential campaign, I have stayed involved with his new political group, Democracy for America and the local SomeStates for Democracy group. SomeStates for Democracy has decided to work on a local level, helping progressive candidates in area races and getting involved in county party committees.

To that end, I attended the April meeting of our county Democratic committee, where she learned that only three delegate candidates (all pledged to Kerry) had made it onto the primary ballot, for our district's four available seats. The county chair asked me to run a write-in campaign for the fourth seat, and it didn't take much convincing to get me to agree.

Coming in fourth place against three others doesn't sound very difficult, but as a write-in candidate, I have to get at least 250 votes. However, this time, I've got help from the county chair and some committee members and have asked pretty much everyone I know to vote for me and to tell all their friends.

Getting those votes isn't necessarily a guarantee that I'll be a delegate, because I still have to be approved by the campaign (probably Kerry, but there's a possibility that Dean, or maybe Edwards, could get 15% in our district and earn a delegate) at the state convention in July.

However, going to the effort to run the write-in campaign will definitely make an impression, so I have a good chance of being approved.