Winding down

I believe today, April 14, is the final day for voting in the SFWA officers election. I had seen April 11 some other place, but the email link to the ballots went out March 14, so April 14 seems more logical.  I seem to recall seeing the April 14 date elsewhere. I received a PM today from a member who said they voted for me, so the link seems to have been active.

In the email sent out to members it was noted "Only one candidate declared their intent to run before the ballot deadline. There are two open positions. On the ballot, you will see there is a "Write-In Candidate" field." That seemed to me to indicate write-in candidates would be welcomed.

Boy, was I wrong about that. Almost immediately after I publicly said I was putting my name forth, the hate began. Tempest Bradford - who is not even a member of the SFWA - kicked it off within 24 hours. She repeated the usual party line lies about me and the Sad Puppies that have been circulating for years now. After all this time, no honest or intelligent person believes this bullshit any more.

Jim Hines tag-teamed her after a while, but he's retreated and left Bradford holding the bag of hate at the end. Some of the other crackpots backed off, too. Jeff Vandemerve accused me of attempted murder (trying to carbon monoxide someone with my car) but deleted his tweets later. No problem, everyone knows the internet is forever. I am so looking forward to suing his heathen ass. It will be enjoyable for a journalist to sue someone else for libel, for a change.

The only thing left is to see how many votes I got. Vince Lombardi once said "Winning isn't every thing; it's the only thing." That may be true in sports, but not necessarily politics. There are many useful reasons for running for office aside from winning - Expressing dissent, motivating voters, advocating new ideas, battling complacency.

Most of the opinion leaders in literary science fiction today are confirmed left-wingers. They don't understand free speech, free elections, free markets and free thought. You exercise your civil right to participate in an election and they lose their minds. They think an election should be done like in good old Khmer Rouge Cambodia or perhaps New York City - there's an approved candidate and they will win with 110 percent of the registered voters.

No matter the final vote total or outcome, I am happy with what I have accomplished. Now I'm just curious whether I will be thrown out of the SFWA, because as you know, toleration is not in these people's DNA.