I did my civic duty and voted today. (and no the picture is from another website. I wish I had gotten some sort of sticker--I always like to display my good-citizenship...) It was heartening to see a long line of newly registering young voters (looked like a lot of undergrad students), almost out of the door of the Catholic church where we voted. The voting officials apologized for the long line and brought around candy and cookies. Fortunately, since I was already registered and had voted at the same polling station two years ago, I got to skip ahead of the line, but I liked to see it. Nothing like a HORRIBLE government to make people want to make their voice be heard. So, despite my moanings about having to choose between two extremes, I do feel like a good virtuous citizen for going ahead and voting--and, yes, to all who are not able to vote but wish they could, I did vote Democrat on pretty much everyone who was nationally important. To maintain my independent status, I voted for a Republican for County Sheriff, but that was because I looked at the statements by the two candidates on the website for the League of Women Voters and the two candidates for sheriff had exactly the same positions, concerns, and experience (the republican had slightly more education, with an MA degree). I had also seen the Republican candidate at a community event in the poorer part of town, which indicated to me that he knew his constituency and was serious about his claim that he wanted to recruit a more diverse police force. Anyway, I hope that today's election will make a real statement of discontent to the leaders who have done such an awful job the last few years. I also hope that in the future, we will have more middle ground to choose from. The latest Newsweek devoted its cover stories to evangelicals in the political process. Overall, other than the few simplifications they made that I talked about earlier on this blog, it was a pretty good issue. This dichotomy we often have to choose from is a false one; there is a lot more diversity out there than the media often represents, and this time Newsweek did a good job of capturing that.
4 comments:
Ooooh... wow, you voted for a Republican, you're so urbane, aren't you! Pat yourself on the back.
:-)
for sheriff, for sheriff, for a small town job... not for congress or senate... {-;
Sherrifs are county-wide you know, right?
When I have the time, I intend to actually study your political positions because (and you will have to forgive me here), you do tend to run on, a side-effect of your long years at school no doubt and something you can't help, I suppose: PhDs candidates just love encyclopaedic, mellifluous treatises (aka "meditations"), don't they? :-)
I do this because I can't quite fathom why, given your background, you would align yourself with spineless, definitely godless Democrats.
Yes, Fred, I do run on, and it is a very bad flaw. I am trying to work on it... The best writers (PhDs included) are concise and do not throw words about with abandon, as I do. I usually prune and edit a little more before I turn something in. This blog has become the catch-all for my wordiness. But now that I have something of an audience shall be working on that. {-;
Study away at my political positions, but do not expect to find consistency or profound depth to them. My vote last week was a vote of protest and pique at the current governement, not necessarily an endorsement of the democratic party, which I certainly have a few problems with--not necessarily the ones you would have, but they could overlap.
But, overall, I think balance is a very good thing, and since the republicans have been in power for so long and have made such a mess of things, I figure its time for things to swing back to the left and let the democrats have chance for a while.
ideally, there would be more than two major parties. I would really like to have a bit more choice.
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