We have an excuse for thinking all politics are a joke, thanks to the Summer of Trump.
“I read on Facebook a comment somebody made, ‘Are there people who are actually going to vote for him?’ I can’t picture him as our president,” said Paige Johnson, a 38-year-old Everett mom.
Johnson was at McCollum Park Friday after her children’s swimming lessons in the outdoor pool.
More than a year before the 2016 presidential election, she isn’t paying much attention to “the Donald” Trump or the rest of the 16-candidate pack seeking the Republican nomination.
Astonishingly, the real estate magnate and “Celebrity Apprentice” showman is way out front — with 20 percent of GOP voters saying they would support him — in a Quinnipiac University National poll released Thursday. Still, that same poll found Trump would lose to a Democrat in the 2016 general election.
“I know who I’m voting for for president, and it’s not Trump,” said Theresa Figurelli, who lives in unincorporated Snohomish County. Figurelli, a teacher at Heatherwood Middle School in the Everett district, gave Trump credit for at least getting people to think thanks to his brash comments about immigration and other issues.
He is also supplying ample fodder for jokes. And I can’t be the only one looking forward with relish to Thursday night’s Fox News debate among the top-10 GOP presidential candidates.
Who knows if we’ll learn a thing about issues? But that spectacle is sure to be entertaining, in spite of Trump’s recent tweet saying “it is certainly my intention to be very nice &highly respectful of the other candidates.”
I’ll admit that following political wackiness is an entertaining pastime. That said, I’m very serious about my role when it comes to elections — I vote.
Maybe you’ve been on vacation, or busy watching Trump on TV in his trucker hats (they say “Make America Great Again”). Maybe you haven’t noticed that under some pile of mail on the kitchen table there’s a ballot to be filled out. There’s an election this week in Snohomish County. By late last week, few of us had taken time to exercise our right and privilege to vote in it.
I dropped my ballot in an Everett mailbox Friday, but could have saved a stamp by using one of 11 drop-box sites, including the one at McCollum Park.
“We would certainly encourage people to return their ballots this weekend,” said Garth Fell, elections and recording manager with the county Auditor’s Office. As of Friday morning, Fell said, ballots had been received by just 12.19 percent of registered voters in Snohomish County.
Fell knows most people aren’t focused on local politics in early August’s prime vacation time. It’s not the county’s fault the timing of the primary election changed several years ago. “It was in September for many years,” said Fell, explaining that new federal rules required military ballots to be out 45 days before a general election.
Figurelli is among that too-slim minority who have voted. “You’ve got to do your civic responsibility,” she said. “I taught eighth-grade history, and I told my students you can’t change anything unless you vote.”
Dick Patow was sitting under a tree at McCollum Park Friday. “I just dumped my ballot in the box,” said Patow, 73, who lives in Everett’s Silver Lake area.
What about Trump? “What an idiot,” Patow said. Yet, he sees some of the appeal, or the fascination, or whatever it is fueling those Trump poll numbers. “I think he’ll be hanging in there,” Patow said. “Other people avoid border problems and other issues. The guy says what he thinks.”
I guess he does — or is the Donald just playing?
“If it’s Hillary Clinton versus Trump, it will just be a joke,” said 34-year-old Sarah Sebuchi, who was also at McCollum Park. Sebuchi already knows her 2016 presidential choice, a lesser-known name. The Bothell woman is a supporter of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
Isn’t supporting a third-party candidate almost like throwing away her vote? Sebuchi doesn’t think so. “If everybody who is contemplating it would do it, maybe we could change our system,” she said.
Maybe. It’s the Summer of Trump, after all. Anything could happen — even a big turnout in a local primary.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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