Friday, September 25, 2009

Concierge voting

Meg Whitman (R-eBay) knows the price of everything, but does she know the value of anything? She's running for governor of California - and thinks she's qualified - despite having never even registered to vote between attaining the age of majority in 1974 and, apparently, 2002. That means she never voted before age 46 - hardly a youthful indiscretion. It also means that she has probably never served on a jury, even if she has been called in the last seven years.

Without juries and voting, I wonder what exactly she thinks our form of government is about. Was even the Magna Carta a mistake? She's in the right party, though, the party that's opposed to government. She was standing on principle! Though it is odd that she now wants to run the state that is home to more than one in eight Americans.

Maybe she would have been able to grace us with her votes if her city hall or voting precinct had had concierge service to allow her to skip waiting in line with hoi polloi. Airports and the FAA are getting this. Restaurants and even hospitals provide valet parking. Couldn't we make it easier for the long-suffering high-self-esteem population to cut line in front of the rest of us, as is their due? Oh, pity the poor wealthy!

Watch this story. The Sacramento Bee broke it, referencing a Business Week story from 2000, and CNN brought it to my attention. If it were about a Democrat, Fox would go wall-to-wall on it. But Whitman is a Republican. Will this die quietly with no louder criticism than tut-tut?

Update: No mention on Fox...

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