Our Ohio primary is coming up on March 15, so as usual I did some research on the candidates and issues.  Not being from here, and still suffering from some culture shock at being catapulted back in time to the 1950s, it takes some digging to get some sense of what people and issues are about here.

So-called progressives are more like conservative moderates, and local referenda are all about things like the big local cement plant getting rezoned for yet more mining land on which to blast the hell out of the environment.  Some citizens (a minority) were not amused, and signed a petition for a referendum on this ballot to oppose the rezoning and blasting, but apparently they got overruled by the big industry corporate powers around here, based on a minor technicality (apparently someone mistakenly signed the petition for an elderly parent who couldn’t, or some such thing.)  Industry and toxic waste usually win out around here.

The other local proposals have to do with levy renewals for police, fire, EMS, and schools, which naturally the conservative locals will vote against.  I know, snore.   On the Dem ballot, apparently very few Dems even bothered to oppose all the Repub incumbents and candidates for state and local offices, so even if you want to vote the straight ticket just to balance the scales a little, there are few choices.  Of the ones that do care enough to run, their self-written profiles are barely literate and don’t give you much to go on.  You just choose the lesser of two amateurs.

Being a newish voter in Ohio, each election seems like an exercise in futility, with obscure, mediocre choices.  But I feel it’s never been more essential than now to use my one small vote and voice to try to even the odds.  So I dutifully do my tedious voter homework, and try to do my little part.  I feel like we’re in the minority here, surrounded by a Fox network mentality.  All one can hope, sadly, is that some of those zombies will succumb to apathy and stay home.