Sunday June 17 The paperwork

Primo has started getting sales brochures for yard signs and bumper stickers. He has gotten solicitations for campaign research and management. And he is getting the campaign questionnaires from the various interest groups.

I thought we were done with the questionnaires after we finished the financial disclosure paperwork for the elections board. What businesses did we own? On what boards do we sit? What stock do we own? To whom do we owe money?

It was a pain in the neck because I have two 401ks still at my former employers. Well-diversified 401ks. Then there's Primo's 401k. And our mutual funds in our savings. And our IRAs. Stupid stupid pain in the neck form.

But I guess it's good we did it. A candidate the next district over, who already had yard signs posted everywhere, dropped out of the race. Rumor has it that he didn't turn his form in before the deadline.

So these questionnaires. So far, from the league of conservation voters (if I remember correctly), and then just this week, from

The State Restaurant Association

The American Federation for Children

The State AFL-CIO

The State Right to Work Committee

Of course, they all ask incredibly loaded questions that reduce to, "Are you a mean, bad person or a good one?"

(They are almost all on paper, as well, so you can't just fill them out online. No, you have to handwrite your answer because who owns a typewriter anymore? Would it have been SO HARD to make online questionnaires, people?)

Here are questions from one of them:

1. Briefly describe your campaign plan, goals and objectives.

Really? What do you think our objective is? TO WIN!

Will you protect public infrastructure, the quality of public services, and the long-term investment of taxpayers by opposing the privatization of public services?

It's hard to know what answer they want, isn't it?

Given the unprecedented cuts to education....How should the state move forward to repair the immense damage that has been done to public education?

Note that there is no documentation of said "immense damage."

In the interests of bipartisanship, here are some questions from another questionnaire. Also biased.

State law allows the use of so-called "project labor agreements," which can keep non-union companies from bidding or working on state-funded projects. These agreements ensure that more workers are corralled into forced unionism and lead to more spending and higher taxes.

"So-called?" Are they not really called that? Is there a question about the nomenclature? And what about "forced" as a neutral term?

A pox on both houses, I say.

Here's one that seems a little more neutral.

Should [the state] enact more programs that increase tax-supported educational opportunities to [state] families?

Slightly biased, but note the lack of words like "damage" and "unprecedented."