Look at the size of that 'I voted!' sticker!!

I voted for Kucinich. Go ahead and let that sink in. It's okay...no one's really believed me the first time I told them, and when I saw the 1% by his name for the Virginia primary results, I kind of couldn't believe it myself.

And until this morning, I didn't think I could do it, mostly because I had the best reason in the world not to vote for Dennis Kucinich: spite. The best part is, I was spiting an online poll, specifically the AOL poll that was floating around that asked you a bunch of questions and then matched you up with a candidate. So I answered the questions and my result was a 100% match with Kucinich, which pissed me off because I figured it was a lazy survey, just figuring, "Ohhhh, I get it. You've answered a couple of questions that make us see that you're just a liberal. Why don't you just vote for the liberal then, you freaky liberal?!"

I figured I'd go with Edwards or Clark. I knew Kerry was going to win, so I realized that I could just vote for the person whose politics I most agreed with, not just for the person who I thought would do the best job as president (and yes, I do think those two things are different). So this morning, I used the nice little Flash app that some programmer at the Washington Post put together that compares and contrasts the politics of each candidate, reckoning that I'd be able to figure out whether I matched up better with Edwards or Clark. But I realized that, issue-for-issue, it was Kucinich that I agreed with most. Now, I wouldn't feel comfortable with someone as liberal as Kucinich as president, and I really disagree that we should pull out US troops from Iraq (you can't make a mess and then just leave without cleaning it up), but this was a good chance to vote for issues and nothing else and know that it didn't make a damn bit of difference to anyone anywhere. Anyone but me, and who matters more? Exactly.

Just take a second out of your busy day to imagine my sense of satisfaction when I saw that little American flag waving on a computer screen, knowing I'd just voted. Oh, I got a sticker, too.