Well, not mineSo on to Super Duper Tsunami Whoop-Dee-Dang-Doo Tuesday. As my family knows, I do not vote. Partially for reasons articulated here, but mostly just to annoy the politically minded people who know me. For the first time in a long time, I am in the minority. Voter turnout today in Arizona has been estimated (by NPR this morning) to probably be greater than 50%. For comparison, voter turnout in a contentious Presidential election in 2000 was only 40%. Even I have been far more conscious of the election results and events than I am happy to admit.
So, what gives? Why the marked increase in interest in a primary election? I have two guesses: First is the unusual notariety of the candidates. Hillary Clinton is as close to Britney Spears as you can get in politics. Barack Obama entered the race because he became a rockstar because of his stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. The Republican side isn't quite as glamorous, but sports a perfectly coiffed Mormon, a media beloved "maverick" and an ex-fat bible-thumping aw shucks populist who plays a mean base.
Plus, there is the polarizing nature of the candidates. Hillary is either the devil or a faithful public servant with the experience to be effective on day 1 and Obama is either a glorified lightweight or a political messiah. John McCain is either a democrat in disguise or a war hero centrist and Romney is either a right wing nut job, but only this week, or the last hope of the soul of the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee is just an idiot, but the kind of idiot that bible thumping, aw shucks types can really get behind. As if that weren't enough, there is enough bad blood between the candidates on all sides to keep the media happy and the public enthralled.
And that's all before Bill Clinton gets factored in.
I think the other reason for high public interest in the elections is a ubiquitous "the sky is falling" media combined with actual issues of great consequence. The war in Iraq has seen enough progress to become a legitimate issue for the voting public. The loud cries for American forces to get the hell out while the gettin's good have been replaced by more subtle arguments for and against maintaining troop levels for some time. In addition, while I am still skeptical of a full-blown recession, there is no doubt that the "sub-prime fiasco" has caused at least a substantial slow-down in economic growth which the media has turned into much more than a needed market correction. These things worry people, and worried people vote.
Personally, I don't know why I care more than I have in the past about the current state of American Politics. Some of it is that I enjoy feeling informed and wasting time when I should be doing homework. Beyond that, I definitely have more interest in Mitt Romney because he is a member of the Church. Though I consider myself pretty conservative, I think I align more with John McCain on issues like Iraq, immigration, and, to an extent, global warming (I also don't like earmarks and excessive spending, but I kind of hate McCain-Feingold). But for some reason, I find myself rooting for Romney in his primary contests. Like a Hillary Voter, I find that I galvanize more to Romney the more he is attacked. If absolutely forced to vote, I honestly couldn't tell you who I would choose of those two until I was actually casting the ballot. I'm not sure what that says about me.
At any rate, I expect to be one of the millions of people who will be watching the results closely as they trickle in tonight. Who will you be voting for (or if you are like me, rooting for) and why?
1 comment:
Just another point to ponder. I think the reason more people are involved this time around has something to do with our current level of technology. Never before have we been able to get information, all kinds of information, more information than we could possibly use. In previous generations, voters were restricted to information gathered from the newspaper or from their friends. Then came radio and then television, but still the information came through the filter of the point of view belonging to that particular station. Now we have the internet. Every possisble piece of the puzzle analized by every possible vantage point. It is easier than ever to get the information we seek and thus more compelling to get involved in the process. Or, in your case, easier to simply gather the information for no particular reason.
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