There are two Presidential election campaigns underway at the moment. Both feature establishment / incumbent parties that are pretty much in disarrary, wracked by missteps and accusations of corruption. They're opposed by candidates who are somewhat unexpected.
One of these campaigns is unquestionably Important, and will affect my life and the lives of everyone in the world in the future. The other is, well, not terribly important to me, or 99.999999% of the world's population.
Am I a Bad Person, then, for being absolutely captivated by the train wreck that is the SFWA presidential election (in which John Scalzi's write-in candidacy has caused some waves), when I can't be bothered to give a damn about the US Presidential election campaign?
I mean, I'm perfectly aware of the relative importance of the two elections, but let's face it, the 2008 election is still more than a year and a half away. We're still almost a year away from the first primaries. And I'm already sick of Clinton and Obama and McCain and Giuliani and Romney.
Go away, smarmy little political people. You annoy me.
In fact, I'm half inclined to publicly pledge my vote to the first candidate who promises not to send me any campaign literature before January 1, 2008. God knows, I won't be reading any of it before then, so you might as well save the paper and printing costs.
The SFWA election, on the other hand, is downright hilarious. It might be a little too much inside baseball, for the casual observer to see the humor, but let's just say that when you're reading an online discussion and Will Shetterly is coming off as one of the calm and reasonable people, then you've fallen down the rabbit hole for sure.
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Me too! I've been obsessively refreshing the newsgroup page.
Yeah, it's surprisingly compelling. Shetterly's posts were certainly a breath of fresh air.
Me as well, and I don't do any writing or fan activities.
Well, the SFWA campaign is at least amusing. The US Presidential campaign is just painful.
That's my story and I"m sticking to it.
MKK
I'd actually worry about you, if you really gave a damn about the presidential primaries at this point. They're all idiots, even the ones I (think I) would be happy to end up voting for(*)-- the likelyhood that positions staked out in January '07 will be relevant even at the beginning of the primaries much less by November '08 becomes vanishingly low.
* And astonishingly, it actually looks as though there's at least one on EITHER SIDE! I may be faced with the inverse of last times' quandry, namely, trying to decide who's better instead of who is least worst. But for CHrissakes, can I not think about this for another 15 or 18 months?!
Hmmm... I think I'm burning out on the schadenfreude from watching the SFWA stuff. (Probably just as well; it cannot possibly be good for the soul). The most remarkable thing about it to me, though, is a look at the, well... argumentative and blinkered SFWA insiders that Scalzi will inevitably be fighting, at least to some extent, to put his program into practice. Which leaves me wondering, albeit from a pure outsider's perspective... Scalzi's platform seems (as far as I can tell) to be an excellent program for a professional writer's organization dedicated to promoting SF... but does it have to be this one?