The Authoritative Guide To Today's Election

     At long last, the day is finally upon us.

     Today, voters will head to the polls to finally pick somebody to replace Todd Courser as state representative after over fourteen six months without any representation in Lansing and to pick somebody to run against Hillary Clinton in November. We'll start with the state representative race, which started out as a total free-for-all with 14 candidates declaring for the position, including the incumbent, who somehow found time in between shoving his face in front of every news camera he could find to run again. Thankfully, the voters were smart enough to not make the same mistake twice.

     It's fairly obvious who's getting the endorsement of the local paper, though, even though they haven't directly endorsed anybody. Yes, Republican Gary Howell found himself on the front page twice in Sunday's County Press, campaign stickers plastered over the faces of his opponents. Yes, they say it was accidental and a printing error. But given that the owner of the paper has donated the maximum allowable amount to Howell in this election and has donated sizable sums in prior ones, which no doubt had something to do with the bizarre double endorsement of Howell and Ian Kempf in last year's primary, this Sunday's claim by one of their columnists that "this newspaper doesn't comment on particular candidates this close to an election" because "we don't want to unfairly influence your vote" rings particularly hollow. And isn't true anyway since, as I just pointed out, they endorsed two candidates in the last election. Needless to say, I doubt you'd have seen DeLuca's campaign stickers laid over top of Howell were it the other way around. 

     (Editor's note: Though, as pointed out to me by my friend Steve Starking, in fairness to the columnist in question, Ed Fitzgerald, he followed that statement with this: "I'm wondering if it's possible that since March came in like a lion, that maybe it will go out like a donkey." Not exactly toeing the party line. Still seems a bit odd to have no official endorsement this time around, though.)

     On to the candidates:

     Margaret Guererro DeLuca- Lost to Todd Courser last time around, and beat out a field of moonbats and no-shows to secure the nomination again. Has a seemingly endless supply of facts and figures to back up every position she holds, and isn't afraid to use them. Also has no problem taking on the other side, as evidenced by her sparring with State Sen. Phil Pavlov over schools (a particular strong point of hers), or working with them when needed. VOTE IF: You'd like to see something resembling actual change in Lansing.

     Gary Howell- The Republican-tested, County Press-approved option. Certainly far more moderate than the last Republican to serve in the office, but not above sending out plenty of negativity in his own right. Still a fairly reasonable guy whose positions differ from the Republican establishment in a few areas, and is rather blunt in expressing those differences. VOTE IF: You'd like to see change in Lansing, but not that much change.

     Tracy Spilker- Jumped in as the Libertarian candidate, and has done Libertarians no favors with her platform, wherein the answer to literally every question is "free markets." Which is great if you're the kind of person who, to take an example from her campaign's Facebook page last night, believes the hydraulic fracking industry will just regulate itself, and that the best thing to do is keep all regulation out of its way. This is, of course, the same woman that thinks the electrician doing work on your house shouldn't need to be licensed to do so, and spent an entire debate saying that the state shouldn't be involved in education at all. VOTE IF: You'd like to set the libertarian movement back about ten years.

     But that's not the only race going on today, of course; there's still a presidential primary to get to as well.

     Biff Tannen- If you like your Republicans to not even pretend to care about minorities, decorum, or basic human decency, then what other choice do you have than a reality star that's failed at businesses too numerous to list here? VOTE IF: You don't understand the difference between "political correctness" and "not being an inconsiderate asshole"; You really wish to kill my faith in humanity.

     Ted Cruz- Manages to run against Donald Trump and somehow still have the most punchable face in the field. As far as his politics, he's like Todd Courser on the national level, without the affairs and cover-ups. Compromise of any sort is weakness, religious liberty only applies to his religion, and it's totally not a conflict of interest that his wife works for Goldman Sachs. VOTE IF: You like your extremist candidates to be even more smug, shifty, and condescending than a guy who bragged about the size of his junk on a debate stage.

     Marco Rubio- Ah, the MarcoBot. It was only a week or two ago that he declared he wasn't going to get into personal attacks, then... started getting into personal attacks. Other than immigration, doesn't differ much from the rest of the field, except for an odd tendency to repeat stump speeches word-for-word on the debate stage when flustered. VOTE IF: You think a guy that can't handle debating with his own party should be leader of the free world.

     John Kasich- Finally, an actual adult in the field! It's a damn shame he's so anti-union, anti-gay, anti-choice, and anti-education funding, because otherwise he appears to be the voice of reason in this field. VOTE IF: You like your right-wing ideologues to at least give the illusion of compassion.

     Hillary Clinton- Not a fan of her current position on an issue? Don't worry! She'll change it in five minutes and tell you she always supported it. Want a direct answer on something? Good luck. Wants to ride her husband's coattails and take credit for his accomplishments... until you mention things like NAFTA and the 1994 crime bill. Then we're not here to talk about the past. VOTE IF: If you think you can legitimately believe half of the promises she makes on the campaign trail. And if you do, then I've got an airport in Lum to sell you...

     Bernie Sanders- The idealist of the Democratic field, and as such, the guy that's been given no shot to win from the  beginning. Are some of his proposals unrealistic and unlikely to pass Congress? Sure. Is he sometimes light on specifics? Sure. But he also holds a lot of positions that the rest of his party, Hillary included, are now coming around to, and has been far more willing than anybody in the race to acknowledge, and denounce, the impact of corporate welfare, corruption, and big money in politics. VOTE IF: If you'd like to see something resembling actual change in Washington.

     Now, I don't care who in the hell you support (unless it's Trump or Cruz, then we can't be friends anymore), and it should be fairly obvious to most of you who I support, but if I could ask one thing of you: think about who you're voting for. Be informed. Know where these people stand before you go into the voting booth. Hell, I've done half the work for you and sat through every debate of the election cycle to do these debate recaps! Make sure we don't have to deal with another mistake on the scale of Todd Courser, or worse. And for as important as this presidential election is, the state representative race can't be ignored either. You see how corrupt the current legislature is. You see how little regard they have for democracy and the will of the people. You see how little consideration the previous occupant of the office gave to his constituents. That's why it's so important to get this one right.

     Because if you don't... we're gonna have to wait a whole eight months to elect another one.