There are two Presidential election campaigns underway at the moment. Both feature establishment / incumbent parties that are pretty much in disarrary, wracked by missteps and accusations of corruption. They’re opposed by candidates who are somewhat unexpected.
One of these campaigns is unquestionably Important, and will affect my life and the lives of everyone in the world in the future. The other is, well, not terribly important to me, or 99.999999% of the world’s population.
Am I a Bad Person, then, for being absolutely captivated by the train wreck that is the SFWA presidential election (in which John Scalzi’s write-in candidacy has caused some waves), when I can’t be bothered to give a damn about the US Presidential election campaign?
I mean, I’m perfectly aware of the relative importance of the two elections, but let’s face it, the 2008 election is still more than a year and a half away. We’re still almost a year away from the first primaries. And I’m already sick of Clinton and Obama and McCain and Giuliani and Romney.
Go away, smarmy little political people. You annoy me.
In fact, I’m half inclined to publicly pledge my vote to the first candidate who promises not to send me any campaign literature before January 1, 2008. God knows, I won’t be reading any of it before then, so you might as well save the paper and printing costs.
The SFWA election, on the other hand, is downright hilarious. It might be a little too much inside baseball, for the casual observer to see the humor, but let’s just say that when you’re reading an online discussion and Will Shetterly is coming off as one of the calm and reasonable people, then you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole for sure.