I (early) voted...

So on Sunday morning, I voted in the Maryland primary. Which may seem odd, since the Maryland primary isn't until April 3. But Maryland passed early voting, and there are now 6 days before election day when you can vote.

Now, on principle I don't much like the idea of early voting. I think voting should require some sacrifice. I mean, if people in Iraq and other countries are willing to risk roadside bombs to voice their opinion, is it too much to ask Americans to roll out of bed a few minutes early to go to the polling place on a specific day? If that's too much for you, maybe you shouldn't have a roll in determining who runs the country. But since it's there, I might as well use it, and one of Baltimore County's 6 early voting places happened to be very close to me. It was painless, except for avoiding the one person politicking near the "no politicking beyond this point" cone. I'm not a big fan of human interaction, especially from strangers about politics.

It was cool to actually vote in a primary that sort of mattered. I grew up in NJ, where primaries aren't until June, and the last 2 presidential races haven't mattered in Maryland, since GWB was uncontested and McCain had enough delegates in 2008. Maryland doesn't seem to getting much publicity for it's primary - Wisconsin's is the same day - but that might be because MD is viewed as a foregone conclusion, with Romney widely expected to win.

I skipped the senate and congressional races, since I had no real preference, and since the odds of a Republican winning those in Maryland is only marginally higher than of me being drafted by the NY Knicks (I'm 5'5").

So who did I vote for? Like a lot of Republicans, I reluctantly pulled the lever (ok, clicked the touchscreen) for Romney. Sure, I would have loved to see someone else in the race - specifically Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana. But you go to war with the army you have, and Romney strikes me as the most likely to win. I don't believe the Newt/Santorum argument that we need someone more conservative. Presidential elections are decided by swing voters in swing states, and swing voters are by definition moderates. I'd like to see the country move to the right, especially on fiscal issues, and a Republican needs to win for that to happen. And as much as I like Ron Paul on a lot of stuff, from drug legalization to being the only candidate to actually defend free trade and the idea of comparative advantage in a debate, his foreign policy - or lack of - scares me. I think America has a role in the world, both in terms of promoting our interests and promoting good, and thus I can't really support him.

So I voted for Romney. At least he has a cool secret service name. He could have picked a worse AMC car, like Pacer or Gremlin.