Doug Clark: Primary over, nausea persists

Like a noxious case of food poisoning, Primary 2007 has passed.

So here are the major Spokane postelection issues as I see them:

1. The mail-in ballot is a dangerous system that can skew the outcome of political races.

I base this on a scientific observation of my own voting habits.

This year I marked my ballot the same time I was paying bills, which immediately put me in a horribly foul mood.

I found myself irrationally blaming City Councilman Brad Stark for the larcenous interest rate on my Citibank account.

Because of this grouchy attitude, I made choices I probably would not have made had I been engaging in something more pleasant than paying bills like, say, wild sex.

And that got me thinking.

Sure, the old going-to-the-polls process might have been inconvenient. But at least our votes were cast in a consistent setting, such as a funky-smelling grade school or adult bookstore.

Now, ballots arrive in the mail weeks before the election. There is no routine. A person can vote anywhere at any time while doing anything.

Why, you could even vote while engaged in porcelain-related bathroom duties.*

*(This may explain 456 of the 457 mayoral votes flushed down the drain for Kroboth.)

Further study, I believe, would reveal other shockers about the Spokane mayor’s race, such as:

“Women were more likely to pick Mary Verner if they voted while watching the Oxygen channel.

“Incumbent Dennis Hession was the overwhelming choice of people who voted behind closed locked doors.

“Sixty percent of those who voted while trolling lewd Internet sites wrote in “Jim West.”

2. It appears Mayor Hession has carried the primary and will face Verner, a City Council member, in the November general election.

Should Hession prevail, he will break Spokane’s long-running curse of the one-term mayor.

Or …

(Insert dramatic organ music.)

… will he?

It is an unexplained and freakish fact that David H. Rodgers was the last Spokane mayor to serve two or more terms. He left office in 1978.

It is also true that Hession is our incumbent.

But hold on, my buckos. Hession wasn’t elected, was he?

He took over via council appointment when recall voters cleansed City Hall of the aforementioned Mayor West.

So technically, a November win would be Hession’s “first” elected term. He would have to win another election to actually qualify as a two-term, curse-busting mayor.

Or …

(Insert ghastly Al French primary-losing wail.)

… would he?

3. The time has come to reward Barbara Lampert for her unprecedented streak of not serving the public.

Lampert has been a loser candidate in every Spokane city or county election since the Crimean War.

This woman hasn’t just tasted defeat.

She’s steeped in it like a loser tea bag.

The point being that this perennial dark horse survived the Tuesday primary thanks to Councilman Rob Crow dropping out of the race for council president. (This happened after Crow was already on the ballot.)

So, Lampert will face Joe Shogan in a replay of their 2003 race for the Northwest council seat where Shogan won in an avalanche.

I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want to say the odds against Lampert are astronomical.

I’ll just say that if the retired nursing aide somehow manages to win, I will attempt to push a peanut with my nose to the top of Mount Spokane.

Wearing a tutu.

So let’s just dispense with all the general election foolishness.

Congratulations, Joe.

But Lampert’s ever-willingness to serve deserves something.

I say we give this good-hearted woman a symbolic post similar to the way lifetime achievement honors are bestowed on warhorse actors and directors.

We could make Lampert, say, the Duchess of Division Street.

Or she could be Spokane’s official gondola ride monitor.

Wait a minute. I’ve got it.

Let’s just put her in charge of pothole repair.

Why not? Even Lampert couldn’t do any worse than whoever’s doing it now.