February 04, 2004
Bad Night For Voting
So, I'm officially depressed about politics for the night.For one thing, Measure 30 failed. Convincingly. Hugely. 60-40. That's just awful.
I have to start challenging myself to consider if there's a whole layer of Oregon politics that I don't know about, like maybe there really is just a whole lot of unnecessary spending going on that I don't know about, and all this talk about it hurting the kids and the poor and the elderly and the ill are fear tactics. I don't know. I've never exactly seen any evidence of that, though. So it's just so much easier to think there are a lot of Gollum-looking desperate money-grubbers that don't believe in a public good, like Kevin Mannix.
And the other one is that I did witness tonight how this damn "Iowa Bump" had such a huge difference for Kerry in all these states. I mean, that bump is huge. Depressingly huge. I didn't realize that such a large percentage of the primary-voting population were sheep. And that's really it, sheep. Where did all these Kerry supporters come from overnight? He was in the toilet four weeks ago. Dean's policies didn't change. Kerry's policies didn't change. Sure, some of Kerry's supporters were from "undecided" folks, but only a portion of them. The others were switchers. Dean didn't become a worse candidate all of a sudden or anything. The only thing they are responding to is the media. They read that Kerry won somewhere, so they switch their vote. As if they get a prize for picking the winner. It's treating a vote as a lottery. You don't get a prize for picking the winner. Your responsibility is to vote your damn preference. I don't get it.
Like I said, it's enough to depress me on a pretty central level. If this feeling continues I will actually come away feeling more and permanently cynical about society than I did before this election. And that's a loss. Damn it.
I wonder if there's a lot of "too busy" people out there who don't have time to investigate the candidates and so go along with whoever seems to have the majority. Big mistake.. but I could see that being part of the case. The media isn't supposed to determine who people vote for.. and yet again, they're doing their part to screw up everything. I'm STILL a Dean supporter. Even if Dean is "sliding" in the media when it comes time to vote in Oregon, I'll STILL vote Dean. Because, Jesus, it's not like that Nader/Gore/Bush dilemma. You vote for who you want, not who looks like they're going to win. There's no "danger" in voting for Dean if all the sheep out there are voting Kerry.
Posted by: at February 4, 2004 11:15 AM