Hermie says, "I'm In-de-pen-dent"

One of the great things about living in NH is how we treat party affiliations. If you are registered as an Independent, on Primary day you walk in and tell them which party's ballot you'd like to vote with. Today, as in most Primary elections, I requested a Democratic party ballot. After I turned my ballot in, I walked over to a table specifically set up for people like me. There, someone guided me to my name in the voter registration lists. I wrote down that I had voted Democrat today and then signed that I would like to go back to being an Independent. So, I was a registered Democrat for all of the two minutes it took me to vote and walk over to that table.

Of course, as a registered Independent I get calls from both Republican and Democratic candidates trying to garner my vote. It is a small price to pay for the liberty of switching parties during the Primaries. I have yet to do it since living in NH, but there were times before living here that I'd wished that I could (I really wanted to see John Anderson as the Republican nominee in 1980, but I got to vote for him anyway when he ran as an Independent.)

If I would have voted Republican this time, I would have gone for Guiliani. As it was, I had a tough call to make today on the Democratic ticket. Vote with my heart, or vote with my mind? Vote for someone who inspires the people but probably not the politicians they'd have to work with, or vote for someone who annoys people but knows how to work within the system? I'm unhappy with what I ended up doing, but it seemed the most logical thing to do. Hopefully, both my candidates will be forced to work together in the end and will create a strong ticket with true vision and power to turn this country around.

Yes, I voted for HER.