Huckleberries: Huckleberries: When in doubt, vote for Pedro

If you don’t like the two main candidates for the U.S. presidency in Idaho, you can select one of the other six choices on the ballot, including Libertarian Gary Johnson, the Green Party’s Jill Stein and Constitutionalist Scott Copeland.

Or you can pencil in one of 37 other names that have been certified by the Idaho Secretary of State as write-in candidates, including six from Idaho: Timothy Helgerson of Nampa, Chris Lacy of Boise, Steven P. Malloy of Idaho Falls, Reverend MsMere of Boise, Janet L Reid of Rigby, and Nicola “Niki” Jo Taysom of Letha.

And, if you still don’t like your choices for president in Idaho, you can vote by write-in for Pedro Montoya Carlos-Sanchez.

Yeah, that Pedro. Napoleon Dynamite’s sidekick in the Idaho-filmed cult classic. After all, who can argue with Pedro’s campaign promise: “If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true.”

Kootenai County Clerk Jim Brannon tells Huckleberries that a Pedro vote won’t count, but your down-ballot votes will. A vote for Pedro causes extra work for the hired hands at the Election Department. But isn’t that a small price to pay to elect a politician who will make your dreams come true?

VW transplant

County Clerk Brannon, by the way, has a new retractable roof for “Otto,” the 1963 VW Beetle that he drives to the courthouse once or twice a week. Huckleberries introduced you to “Otto” recently. Brannon bought the VW bug from a Seattle owner. Seems VW Beetle owners name their vintage bugs.

Which brings us to “Milton.”

Clerk Brannon plans to perform a retractable roof transplant next spring. Recently, he was contacted by the owner of a 1962 VW Beetle from Post Falls who survived a crash unscathed at the intersection of Seltice Way and Spokane Street in Post Falls. Another driver ran a red light and nailed his Beetle. Milton was totaled. Afterward, Milton’s owner called Clerk Brannon to ask if he wanted Milton’s retractable roof. Brannon did.

May Milton rest in pieces.

Huckleberries

Some Kootenai County Republicans gnashed their teeth after U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo pulled his endorsement of crude, misogynistic Donald Trump. But the local Teapublicans didn’t rescind their backing for Crapo, as their Idaho County (Grangeville) brethren and sisteren did. Idaho County R’s wrote to Crapo: “You have lost our respect as a Republican and feel you are no longer worthy of the title of ‘Republican’ that we proudly wear.” History will prove Crapo right, if it hasn’t already.

Crapo may have lost support of Idaho County Teapublicans for his principled opposition to Trump. But my Huckleberries blog readers don’t think the blowback will amount to much. In fact, they said in a poll last week that Crapo might even gain votes for un-friending the possible Groper-in-Chief.

Poll: Fifty percent of my Huckleberries blog readers plus one say they would like to see a “None of the Above” option included on their ballots.

So Kim Ashbaugh, of Coeur d’Alene, was walking along the Centennial Trail, near the new statue of Chief Morris Antelope at North Idaho College, when she heard a rustling in the bushes. She looked down. And saw a porcupine about a foot away. She slowly edged away and took photos from a safe distance. Be careful out there.

Parting shot

Now that she’s entered the fourth quarter of this bruising football game of life, Sandpoint blogger Marianne Love prefers to look at “firsts.”

Rather than dwell on the thought that she might be doing something for the last time, Marianne enjoys such bucket-list events as harvesting her own sweet potatoes for the first time. That’s why she was giddy and tired Wednesday after pawing through manure pile dirt to snag the tubers.

She wrote on her Slight Detour blog: “When we think of all the daily redundancy in our lives, any adventure into an unknown or anything unexperienced is pretty exciting.”

Words to live by.