Not Playing That Game

     I read an editorial letter recently urging those of us who vote by mail to wait until the campaign is nearly over to cast our votes. In other words, he wants us to willingly participate in the political party game of saving some information dirty bomb they have been sitting on for months, so they can detonate it just before the election when it is too late to determine if it is fake news. The writer cited last year's night before the election dust up between Greg Gianforte and a British journalist. I hate to break this to him, but I was an election judge that year and the comments I heard from voters were 4 to 1 in favor of what Gianforte did. In Dave Barry's 2017 Year in Review, he wrote that this signified "that in much of the nation journalists enjoy the same level of popularity as head lice." Fortunately,  I have no personal experience with head lice, unfortunately, I have more respect for them than the press. I believe journalists are often guilty of trying to be the news instead of report the news. But this is not "much of the nation", this is Montana. Gianforte's opponents spent a lot of time and money pointing out that Greg was guilty of not being from Montana. His election eve body slam established for many of us native born that Greg is a Montanan at heart. Montana has a long standing tradition of election night fights.
    So Mr. Editorial writer, I am no more likely to wait until election day to fill out my ballot than I am to disable the spam filter on my computer. I do not rely on last ditch propaganda to make my decisions. If I want fake news, there's always Facebook. But to delay voting until the last morsel of mud has been slung--I'm not playing that game.