My husband and I spent many years working in television news. I can promise you, the one thing we don’t miss is election coverage. Most folks don’t realize election day is like the Olympics for newsies. You spend your whole day watching and waiting for voters to come and go (make sure you get that shot!), for officials to count the votes (hanging chad anyone?) and for the totals to be tallied (one word: Florida). Sometimes it’s quick and dirty and sometimes it’s just the longest day of your life.
The most important thing in a newsroom is getting those numbers in. Once, while I was at KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas, I managed to find myself deep in the middle of nowhere Arkansas, the champion of roadkill. As I was driving (the station car) a huge doe ran out in front of me, flipped on top of the hood, flew over the windshield and off the roof of the car…all while I screamed like a girl! With the headlight busted, the front grill hanging off and deer hair stuck to the windshield wipers, I called back to the news station to let them know what had happened. My news director said if it can drive, keep going to your story. There is nothing like rep’n the TV station at the county courthouse looking all ghetto fabulous in your demolition derby car.
Living life south of the Mason-Dixon line doesn’t really leave one exposed to a lot of Yankee politics. When we moved to New York, we had no idea what we were getting into. Seriously, our only political predisposition came from Saturday Night Live. We would sit (in Arkansas & Mississippi) watching and complain, “those writers act like the world revolves around New York.” How could we know about the vast wealth of material they have here?
To begin…this year’s gubernatorial race featured tons of candidates. The one that stuck out for us (and I’m sure many other NY’ers too) was Jimmy McMillan. He’s part of “The Rent 2 Damn High” party. I actually laughed in the voting booth when I noticed the ballot read that too. McMillan’s trademark crazy white beard and black OJ gloves would have made him a great reoccurring character on SNL had he won the election.
New York has dealt with their fair share of political scandal. Who could forget Eliot Spitzer and Ashley Dupre? Thanks SNL for those memories. David Paterson became the state’s first legally blind governor after Spitzer resigned…while he made for a great skit, he actually wasn’t happy at all with his portrayal on SNL. Sure, every state has it’s share of super famous infamous politicians (and yes, we’ve lived in those states) but New York’s seem to be dancing front and center in mainstream media. Of course, that could be because of those SNL writers too.
.jpg) |
| Let’s go vote! |
We were super stoked to rock the vote this year! Our first time as New Yorkers voting was literally just steps from our apartment…the polling place was at the end of the street in our complex. Such a nice short walk! But with all of the advances in voting, we were surprised to find that the ballot was just a scantron that only required you to fill in the circles with a “special” ink pen. C’mon y’all, even Arkansas has electronic voting!
New York also has the most overly complicated ballot we’ve ever seen. We could choose candidates from Democrat, Republican, Independence (not Independent), Conservative, Working Families, Green, Rent 2 Damn High, Libertarian Freedom and Taxpayers Anti Prohibition parties. Uh, and why was there a picture of a marijuana leaf under the “Taxpayers Anti Prohibition” party? To top off the confusion, some of the candidates were listed multiple times under different parties. Take a look at my actual ballot and tell me this doesn’t look crazy…
