Given that Americans will go through the annual fall ritual of turning their clocks back one hour Saturday night or early Sunday morning, how will you spend that extra hour?
Will you draw the blankets back over your head and catch an extra hour of slumber when the alarm clocks sounds, or will you ease out of bed and to the kitchen, basking in the glory of silence and peace while everyone else in the home takes advantage of the time change by finishing their dreams?
Me, I’ll be cramming, doing my best to understand what I’ll be voting on Tuesday. Otherwise it will be a generous helping of guilt and shame when I leave parts of my ballot blank or when I make a last-minute “educated” guess in the voting booth.
Most times I’m sure on the whos I am voting for, it is the whats that give me anxiety and feelings of intellectual inferiority. The combination of legal and bureaucratic jargon presented in a hodgepodge of tiny-typed run-on sentences makes understanding what exactly is being proposed and what, exactly, my yea or nay vote does to that proposal a complicated mind-numbing endeavor. Sometimes I wonder if that is the intent of those who would prefer we throw our hands up in frustration rather then cast an educated vote.
Presumably those who won’t be getting much sleep regardless of time change are the men and women running for office in South County. In National City two incumbents are trying to stave off four challengers while in Chula Vista only two handfuls of residents will be voting for council representatives.
The historic district races in Chula Vista are intriguing not only because it will be the first time only a select number of neighborhoods are voting for one person to serve them directly but also because of the choices they face.
In each race, District 3 and District 4, candidates are running to fill seats left open by termed-out council members. The races also pit former legislators against would-be lawmakers with little if any experience.
In District 3, Steve Padilla, a former mayor and council member, takes on Jason Paguio, an aide to outgoing council member Steve Miesen. While Paguio supporters might argue that his time at Miesen’s knee for the last two years gave him plenty of job experience, it’s nothing compared to Padilla’s time as Chula Vista councilman, mayor, port and coastal commissioner.
Similarly, District 4 has former councilman Rudy Ramirez coming back for a third term, running against retired firefighter Mike Diaz. Like Padilla, Ramirez did his time on the council and though that is the extent of his legislative experience it is still significantly more than his opponent’s.
Interestingly, enough voters in two distinct districts are faced with a similar question: Do they want a representative with previous experience or a fresh but untested approach to governing?
It is enough to keep a voter up at night — or get you out of bed early Sunday morning.
