Thumbing my nose

As I've indicated on numerous previous occasions, I'm not sure how I'll vote on ballot measure two, the natural gas reserves tax proposition. But I'm leaning towards saying "yes" for a reason the ADN aptly summarizes this morning:

The big-money effort to defeat the natural gas reserves tax initiative is setting a lousy example for how to run an honest campaign.

It is too bad. Voters should defeat the misguided tax on the Nov. 7 ballot, but a few more of the offensive anti-tax ads and some Alaskans may just decide to vote yes as a protest over the nasty campaign.

Reading stories about oil companies forming front organizations to defeat the measure is bad enough but when they try to subvert the ballot measure process, it just kind of makes me want to thumb my nose at them with the only tool I have - my vote.

I like to make each of my votes a positive, affirmative statement of what I believe (which is probably why I often find myself using the write-in line) and my rationale so far seems petty. But it might be all I've got on an issue I still have trouble understanding.

On another note, perhaps my previous advice to Eric Croft to sit back and let the ad campaign shoot itself in the foot, should be withdrawn.