Page Two: It's Time To Vote

When working at a weekly publication like the Chronicle, one can quickly get caught up in the grinding, week-after-week rhythm until any sense of time is mangled and all perspective is lost. There are times when it's like you are in an endless desert, where you can see clearly in every direction but it all looks the same. The unchanging landscape smothers any sense of direction, usually leading to your constantly being lost. At other times, it is like being in a driving snowstorm, with the snow fiercely angled right at you. Head down, you just push forward, knowing you are making progress but being not exactly certain how much or in what direction.

Eventually, there is always an awakening. Fortunately, during the return to consciousness, that same weekly schedule is a saving grace. Repetition, which can deaden the eyes and numb the mind, can also provide a reassuring certainty. Especially in light of the fact that the paper has been going for 30 years now, time and chronology are firmly anchored; even if they've been distorted, they can quickly be regained.

Another advantage of a publication is that there are any number of special issues that in these circumstances serve as smelling salts.

The current issues are not particularly special (except in the ways every issue is), but they begin the buildup to one of our most popular annual issues. The Austin Chronicle "Best of Austin" ballot for 2011 is in this issue, and it will run in the next couple of issues as well.

If you prefer to vote online instead, go to austinchronicle.com/bestof. The deadline by which all ballots must be at the Chronicle offices is July 18. There are considerably more than 200 categories. You can vote in only one category, or in some or most or all of them, depending on your interests. Regardless, your ballot will be counted.

There is also the Wild Card category, where you get to "Tell us who or what you'd give an award to." Make use of this. If you find yourself complaining because we lack a category in an area where you feel we should have one, just write it in.

As enamored as I am with the art of equivocating, I find "Best of Austin" almost heaven-sent, because it is not designed to be either finite or definitive. As Nick Barbaro wrote in "Page Three" of last year's issue, "I like to think of it as 'Some of the Best of Austin.'"

Similarly, I wrote on October 13, 2006: "The 'Best of Austin' issue should be just such a voyage of discovery. It is a beginning, not an ending – the map for a scavenger hunt for the wonderful, unique, and not-to-be-missed, rather than any kind of exclusive catalog of Austin businesses, people, places, events, and the like. The 'Best of' should lead you in hundreds of interesting directions. The heart of the issue, however, is not in these pages. It's when you finish that meal and say, 'That chicken-fried steak was great, but it isn't the best! That's at ...' And off you go!"

Most important, the choices in the readers' half of the "Best of" poll – whether they involve businesses, people, events, places, services, or whatever – are made by you, the readers. There are any number of conspiracy theories as to how the 'Best of' is fixed; not surprisingly, a number of them start with the assumption that winning in a category is dependent on being a Chronicle advertiser. This is nonsense. The results that appear in the Chronicle "Best of Austin" Readers Poll results come from tabulating your votes and your votes alone.

One year, just as the "Best of" issue came out, I visited a retail business where I occasionally shop. People inside were talking about the poll. I'm fairly sure they had no idea who I am or that I'm connected with the Chronicle. Having not won in their category, they were talking to a couple of their regular customers, going on and on about how the poll was fixed. The only time they had ever won, they pointed out, was when they had advertised in the Chronicle.

I wrote "in their category," but this business actually specialized in two distinct but complementary areas. Truth be told, they didn't deserve to win in the category as it appeared in the poll. It's a great business, and they do a fine job, but there are more comprehensive retail outlets in that specific category in Austin.

In the next year's poll ballot, I made sure that the title of the category was expanded to include the other side of their business. The result ended up being a tie between the logical winner of the category and this business.

I'm sure that doesn't prove anything, but I found it entertaining. This really is your poll. If you vote in it, you get to help author the results. So vote!

On another topic entirely: The current political scene is incredibly interesting, though it is often equally depressing. The electoral victory of the Republicans in 2010 has been interpreted every which way but loose. The Republicans interpreted it as a heartfelt mandate by the voters to fulfill their longtime political platform. In 2008, when Obama won, they did not gift the results with nearly the same conclusions. When the party was in control of both legislative branches and the presidency from 2000 to 2006, its members pursued its legislative platform only halfheartedly. Unfortunately but notably, the elected representatives to the federal government from the party of fiscal conservatives spent federal money like drunken sailors on holiday.

In order to be fair, it has to be acknowledged that they did make strides in their efforts to cut back on government supervision, regulations, and restrictions affecting businesses. They achieved many of their goals in this area, including easing regulations on financial institutions (coupled with not making much of an effort to enforce the ones that remained) and cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans. The end result was not a thriving economy and a slim jobless rate but an ongoing financial disaster.

It seems highly unlikely that the 2008 vote was an endorsement of the Republican vision, but rather that the voting public was fed up with business as usual in Washington, the state of the economy, and the lack of jobs. When it comes to the first item on that list, after being elected, Republicans single-mindedly pursued further partisan polarization rather than compromise. They have talked about the latter two items but have done precious little to deal with them.

Few economists, if any, think that cutting federal debt will create jobs. Certainly, there are many who still feel it is the highest priority. The American people will discover that when it comes to their economic concerns, debt reduction is no salve. Most economists, regardless of their stand on the deficit, will also point out that dramatically cutting federal spending is more likely to cost jobs than to create them.

But in so many ways, congressional Republicans are playing a bizarre bait-and-switch ideological game that embraces partisan loyalty over legislative accomplishment while preferring sloganeering and extreme rhetoric over actual content. Instead of the economy and jobs, instead of searching for firm fiscal footing or even making a real effort to address the budgetary crisis, they are busy sniping at the Democrats, trying to set them up to take the fall.

The political issues that they have been pushing are for the most part those they didn't really advocate or discuss during their electoral campaigns. They seem hell-bent on destroying unions and getting rid of the collective-bargaining rights of public workers. They insist on smaller government, except when it comes to regulating individuals' lives on their pet issues. There probably is no more misguided and counterproductive campaign currently being waged than the hypocritical effort to eliminate Planned Parenthood. Many, if not most, Republican officeholders have to be well aware that this is an exceedingly dishonest campaign that will do little to limit abortions but instead have a devastating impact on women's health and family planning. It is the most fantastic display of the privileging of phony and destructive symbolism over the actual contours of the situation. Planned Parenthood provides the very kind of family-planning services that are far more effective in stopping abortions than the conservatives' much-beloved pro-abstinence campaign.