Checksum Arcanius

The phone rang. The caller ID said “Friends of Dave.” I figured it meant Dave Reichart or Dave Ross, but I didn’t know which, and I don’t care much for either, so I was just a bit combative when I picked up the phone.

“Which Dave are you a friend of?” I implored.
“Excuse me?” came the slow response.
“The caller ID said ‘Friends of Dave’ – I’m wondering which Dave you’re a friend of.”
“Oh… I’m calling on behalf of Friends of Dave Ross.”
I pressed on – “Are you really his friend, or are you just calling on behalf of his friends?”
But then the caller had his own surprise for me: “Actually he’s sitting just two cahirs to my right.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that, “Cool.”
The caller (I’ll call him Pete, although I don’t remember for sure) continued with his script. We talked about a few issues and ended up on Transportation before I started pressing again. Then Pete had another surprise:
Pete: “In fact, here’s Dave.” He handed over the Phone.
Dave Ross: “I heard Pete here trying to explain some things to you. I thought I could help out.”
Well, I’ll admit I wasn’t prepared for this. So we ended up only talking about transportation, and Dave had reasonable responses (bass the $318 billion bill stuck in the congress, mainly). I wish I had more foresight and talked about more general (ie, is government primarily a solution provider or a problem causer?)

Oh well, I guess I have to do my own research on this one. It does make me think that I need more objective measure for candidates. Like a web-based application that quantifies distance between my views (or anyone’s for that matter) and the views of candidates.
Kind of goes along with Theo’s local politics Groklaw idea. Its a good worthwhile project at least.

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