Election Misfire



It seems so innocuous. While I was on my way into the polls on Tuesday, I was handed a flyer for a candidate. I was about to walk on when the man said "wait a sec" and handed me a second promotional item: a nail file with the candidate's name on it.

I have received magnets, key chains, rulers, pens and all sorts of useless ephemera before, but this was the first nail file. And it wouldn't have bothered me, except that the man behind me didn't get one.  While I was waiting in line for a free voting booth, I asked every man with a flyer if he had received a nail file, none of them had.

Maybe, because it was the end of the day, they were running out and the volunteer had decided only to give them to women. Maybe it was a mistaken attempt at being nice and providing female voters with something they could use. (Although men have fingernails too.) I tried to find the volunteer to ask, but he was gone by the time I came out.

But honestly, I felt like some idiot had decided that the best way to reach out to female voters was with grooming supplies. And that just irks me. Did somebody really think that giving me a nail file would show that the candidate understands women? You think you can buy my vote with a piece of roughened cardboard? 

A nail file. What an insult.