Fed up

The po­lit­i­cal con­ven­tions ha­ven't even been held yet (and they're pret­ty ir­rel­evant this time an­y­way), but I am al­read­y sick and tired of the whole thing.

A mar­vel­ous UW pro­fes­sor I had in the 1950s, Bill Ames, an ar­dent and very ac­tive Democrat, once said that "What this coun­try prob­a­bly needs is a be­nevo­lent dic­ta­tor."

I re­mem­ber this every four years.

­-- Dave Felthous, Se­at­tle

What in­de­pend­ent means

Erin Mc­Cal­lum [“Independent voters are fed up,” O­pin­ion, Aug. 6] claims un­e­quiv­o­cal­ly to know “what ex­act­ly in­de­pend­ent voters are look­ing for in can­di­dates,” then pro­ceeds to list what she and mem­bers of her busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tions want.

She's en­ti­tled to her pri­ori­ties, but she does not speak for me or a lot of oth­er in­de­pend­ent voters. Ex­cuse me, but that's what in­de­pend­entmeans.

-- Kath­er­ine Klekas, Se­at­tle

And my vote goes to ...

Every pol­i­ti­cian run­ning says no new tax­es.

My vote would go to the per­son run­ning who stands up and says: We need more tax rev­e­nue if we want our roads, bridg­es, ed­u­ca­tion, laws etc. to be ef­fec­tive.

What kind of coun­try do we want — ig­nor­ant, dy­ing young­er, more home­less folks, con­tin­ue to go down on the list of top count­ries in so many ways?

E­lim­i­nate the lid on So­cial Security, have some sort of uni­ver­sal health care, in­crease tar­iffs and level the play­ing field.

You and I can't live on what we did in the 1970s and nei­ther can the coun­try.

— Har­ri­et Benjamin, Se­at­tle