Cast my vote for a Democratic gov/ltg here in MA because the one time I met Deval Patrick he really impressed me as a different kinda politician. I’ve been supporting his candidacy ever since — that was back before the primaries, before he was ever given a realistic shot at winning.

I did my usual voting for Green/Rainbow candidates as well. I think my vote for Patrick was the first time in years I’ve voted for a major party candidate. I’ve never voted for a Democrat OR Republican for President, ever, not since I first voted in 1980. Cast my vote over the years for everything from Greens — not for Nader, though — to Communists to various independent candidates. I’m a firm believer in the quixotic, and a firm supporter of voting for what I believe rather than for the lesser of two evils, or for a candidate I don’t dig just to keep another one from getting elected.

Of course, being from MA I have the luxury of doing this because we’re such a solidly Democratic state that my vote will do little. Monopolies suck, no matter whose monopoly they are. But my vote will help keep the Green Party on the ballot for another election cycle — they have to garner 5% or better to do so. I think that’s important. Very important.

If I lived in a more contested state, I’m not sure how I’d feel — but I suspect I’d do much the same thing a lot of the time.

I’m off to vote, which I frequently do against my better judgment…

Someone I knew once used to say, “I never vote. It only encourages them.” A lot of times, I think he was right.

But I always vote, because somewhere in me is a tiny optimist struggling to get out, and it’s one of the few times he gets to stick his head up for air.

I think in another country and another place, I’d be a bomb thrower, a gunslinger. Thomas Jefferson’s stated belief that democracy needs to be renewed with bloodshed every twenty years or so (and yes, he was talking about the US) resonates with me…sometimes, the issues we deal with seem to me to be best dealt with with iron and blood, not a paper ballot or a campaign sign.

But I’m not that guy. I’m an American, a sensibly shod fat guy in need of a shave who writes poetry and thinks too hard about things and hopes like hell he’s wrong most of the time.

So I’ll vote, and let my inner optimist breathe, and leave the dream of smashing the state for another time.

But I’ll have a knife in my pocket, just in case.