So, here’s the deal: Patricia Todd is a white woman, Gaynell Hendricks is a black woman.  Both are competing for the Alabama State Senate seat in area 54 (which makes me think of a video game or a sci-fi movie.  And not a good one in either case).

And there was all this talk of racism in the weeks leading up to the election — surprisingly, here in Alabama, it was not Patricia accused of it, but Hendrick’s campaign and supporters, claiming that the blacks in the zone needed to protect their interests by voting black.

And so it’s down to a runoff vote, then a contested election, and so on.  All this for a state Senate seat.  In Alabama.

But here’s the rub: the same guy who wrote that letter to Area 54 residents (““Moreover, if we start electing whites in majority black districts, the chances are great that these districts will be redrawn as majority white districts after the 2010 census, and will remain so thereafter”), on Dr. Joe Reed, is now scrambling to get himself and two others on a committee of five that will decide the contested election.  This same Dr. Reed that, according to a statement made by Todd on August 16th, paid the fee required to contest the election, after the original filer’s check bounced.

It’s not the conflict of interest that bothers me.  It’s the fact that politicians are trying more and more to pull this shit right in front of our eyes and then complaining when we notice, or denying their actions, or saying that we’re wrong about their intentions, or saying that we have no clue what we’re talking about.  It’s the same thing across the country, from local boards to the President’s administration in Washington. And, outside of the blogosphere (mostly those bloggers who spend too much time shutting out unlike-minded people with their extremist rants), it seems to me that no one is really all that concerned. “It’s just politics as usual.”

Really?  Am I just a little late in pulling the idealistic blinders off my face at this point?  Or are you all just becoming complacent and giving up?  Are you not the least bit insulted that these pretentious and arrogant fucks with their overblown sense of entitlement and underdeveloped moral systems think they can pull this off, right in front of your blind eyes that couldn’t possibly understand even if you did see?

They’re calling you a moron, to your face, and you don’t seem to care.

For the record, I know Patricia; I’ve done volunteer work for AIDS Alabama, and I am the webmaster for her election website. She’s a nice woman, and smart, and if I lived in her district, I would’ve voted for her, too.  But this isn’t really about that (though I wish her luck in this bullshit process).  It’s about people like Joe Reed, and people refusing to gracefully admit defeat in what amounts to a popularity contest, and the entire process upon which the governing of our country — okay, fine, the governing that I have to live with — is based.

Anyone that really thinks that our electoral system is truly representative of the people needs to take a closer look at this mess, and then get back to me.

(Thanks to 3cho, Dre, and Kathy for bringing this to my attention, albeit indirectly)