A $6,038,000 Beauty Contest

A $6,038,000 Beauty Contest

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Story Published: Aug 29, 2003 at 11:12 AM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:09 AM PDT

By Ken Schram

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SEATTLE - To you and me, $6,038,000 is a lot of money.

To folks in Olympia, it's chump change.

In the grand scheme of things, they figure wasting $6,038,000 is worth the price of admission to an election that means absolutely nothing: zip; zero; zilch.

I'm talking about our state's presidential primary.

Come March 2, we'll be voting in that election.

Only problem is, the Democrats will have already picked their presidential delegates from the caucuses on Feb. 7.

Now, Republicans MIGHT use the election to select 1/3 of their delegates.

Then again, they might not.

Either way, it basically leaves March 2 as a beauty contest; a $6,038,000 beauty contest.

Fact is, the state's presidential primary has been mostly a feel-good exercise from the beginning.

This time around, it won't even be that.

Secretary of State Sam Reed says we should go ahead with a meaningless $6,038,000 election anyway.

He offers some blah-blah-blah rationale about how it'll help entice candidates here to stump for our vote.

Gimme a break.

I say we flush the election and spend the money on something meaningful. Maybe even something important.

I know in Olympia it's just chump change, but out here where the rest of us live, $6,038,000 is still a lot of money.

Want to share your thoughts with Ken Schram? You can e-mail him at kenschram@komo4news.com

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