Prop 45 is too much power! to give to one man! in Sacramento!

Yeah, that he would be able to say no to Anthem raising its rates 40% without justification? We gave that same officeholder that same power over car insurance rate increases and now Californians have some of the lowest auto premiums in the nation.

The phone rang. Richard picked up the receiver and actually listened to the robocall.

Then he said the candidate’s name to me, questioningly, not sure he’d quite heard it right.

I had read every article over the past month about the various people running but that wasn’t enough: today I spent hours rereading them, sample ballot in hand, going for second sources, researching the propositions on the ballot some more and trying to feel like I would be using my voting to the best of my ability come the morning. It is a sacred responsibility.

Note to this election’s big spenders: I read every flier as it came in the door and only one single one gave me any actual and factual information. Thank you for keeping the Post Office solvent but every dime you spent on those was wasted.

He wrinkled his nose going, Tell me that wasn’t someone I wanted to vote for because I don’t now.

Yeah, I told him, that’s the one running against Tuck. Tuck is supposed to be competent, thoughtful, and honest, vs the guy you just heard who has vowed to waste more taxpayer money to appeal that teacher’s tenure case rather than fixing the problems in the system that got the case filed. Here, I can pull up the article and you can read for yourself.

We both agreed that teachers need to be protected from bad administrators and bad parents, very definitely. At the same time…

We had some of the best teachers you could ever hope for for our kids, but just a very few who…

Let me say it flat out, you have to be able to get rid of the terrible ones. (The one who accidentally blew up her classroom during a sixth-grade demo of science that she did not understand did get, and it is a very good word for it, fired on the spot. No injuries. Other than that, she was actually a strong improvement over a particular one I’m thinking of.)

Then there are the candidates who will be deciding what our new voting machines are going to be: a previous Secretary of State had approved Diebolds that could be hacked in 30 seconds; the one after, a career politician termed out of her previous office, had run on a campaign of fixing the mess but then had done nothing. She updated nothing. She left cities and counties with unusable machines and no means to get out from under and oh look, we have an election again, don’t we, well now didn’t see that coming.

Who we vote into just that one state office impacts all the others. If you’re in California, here’s what the Merc had to say. Vote Pete Peterson over Mr-where’s-my-next-campaign-contribution.

To my American readers, change millions of lives for the better including your own Tuesday. Vote!