Wife Rule #101: She's Well Qualified

My wife and I try to be involved in local politics, believing that the local level is where an individual citizen can have the biggest influence for good or bad in others' lives.

We generally try for good.

The state we live in has a caucus system where voters are invited to gather together by precinct and elect delegates to the county and state party conventions. These delegates then do further voting at the conventions to determine which congressional candidates will make it to a primary election, if there is one. So the delegates, elected from among our peers in a relatively small gathering, actually have a pretty big influence in the politics "upstream" at the state and national levels.

Thus, it was with a solemn attitude that my wife accepted the nomination to be a delegate, made by one of our neighbors. Before voting, each candidate for delegate had a chance to briefly outline their viewpoints on any issue they felt was pertinent, and to answer questions. My wife didn't have anything particularly controversial or unique to say, and no one asked any tough questions.

General members of the caucus also had the chance to offer arguments for or against particular candidates. I think my wife's nomination was most affected by the comments of a soft-spoken, sweet old lady we had never before met, who raised her hand and offered this bit of sage wisdom: "I think we should vote for her [pointing to my wife] because she is as cute as a button!"

Cute as a button. No counter-argument there.

And that's how my wife became a delegate, did her civic duty, and enjoyed learning from the experience. Looking back, now with a few more years of local political experience behind me, I can see that she really was as well qualified as anyone else there, and to top it off, she really is as cute as a button.

Sage wisdom prevails again.