I can still remember watching Mary Martin in the 1960 NBC production of Peter Pan, asking me and every other child watching the boob tube to clap to show we believed in fairies, because, if we all clapped enough, by God we could save Tinker Bell!
And we thought we had, all of us little four and five year-olds. But that was not true, of course. Our clapping did nothing, except hurt our hands. I know mine were as red as they had ever been before. Hurt like a Mofo.
That’s sort of the way I feel about polls right now. A week or two ago we – our team – were down in the polls, and now we are up! Clap, clap, clap! Oh how wonderful!
Well clap all you want, but remember this. The only poll that counts is the one in which you walk or drive down to your local polling place, sign in, receive your ballot and vote for Barack Obama and every other Democrat.
Got that? Voting is what counts. Clapping and other self-congratulatory cheering at “good news” – i.e., stupid horse race news such as the incessant and relentless coverage of poll results here, there and everywhere – makes one feel good, but it isn’t worth a damn thing.
So clap all you want, but more importantly next Tuesday, as bright and early as possible, go do the real work that is required of you as a citizen in our “still barely a” democracy – VOTE!
And then chide, harass and/or assist anyone else you know get to their precinct to cast their votes, also.
Do that and then maybe later that night we will have something to clap about.
Do you know who’s running for city council? School board? County board? State rep?
Your vote in local races is a lot more important than your vote for President. Local government is the most powerful level of government in the political system, and your individual vote counts for a lot more there then nationwide.
Know your ballot before you go in.
Good point.
When I received my sample ballot in the mail I didn’t even know about half of the local races and ballot measures on it. Even I was slightly overwhelmed. I worried that I might accidentally vote for a Creationist for school board or some Nazi as a judge, etc. Thankfully, the County Democratic Party sent me a nice postcard with their endorsements for all these smaller offices and issues.
Your local Democratic Party or your labor union should have information about each of these ballot issues on their website. Check it out before you vote. Print out their handy cheat sheet, mark any exceptions where you might disagree with their endorsement and bring it with you to the polls. Makes voting a whole lot easier.
Yep, I always check our union, local papers, local Dem offices on referendums and candidates. It’s actually pretty easy and is the least we can do.
For folks not in a union find a local or statewide branch of AFL-CIO or AFSCME.
The down ticket contests are SO important – all the way down to dog catcher. Just look at how the GOP managed to grab state legislatures and governor chairs at a 3:2 ratio. That’s a big reason they’ve got the clout to push voter suppression.
To add: What makes these local offices particularly difficult is that they are typically called “non-partisan” even though partisans are running for them.
Interestingly enough the Chicago Federation of Labor does not support my Democratic State Senator nor do they support the Republican challenger. The Republican, a lawyer specializing in suing the State on behalf of teachers and cops denied pensions is much more in tune with me on policy, but his web site has a fatal (and I mean FATAL) flaw under the endorsement listings, The National Right To Life Committee. On behalf of the women of Illinois, I cast my vote this morning for the Democrat who wants to cut pensions and raise local property taxes to make up for decades of the Legislature raiding the Pension Fund and blowing much of the remainder on high fees for Investment Firms with clout. This illustrates the tough choices a voter has to make. It’s not just “vote for the Party”.
And yes, I held my nose and voted for Barack Obama and Tammy Duckworth. I would have voted for even worse candidates to avoid voting for Mitt Romney and Joe Walsh.
However, I know they will conspire with Rahm Emanuel to do me grievous financial harm, just like I just did this morning to those poor teachers and cops. What goes around comes around.
I certainly sympathize. As you know, we have more than a few similar contests over here in Hoosierland.
In some ways Indiana is Illinois on steroids.
Yeah I do. We have received a stack of campaign fliers for every conceivable office and issue this last month that would fill up a dumpster. But even if I hadn’t I make sure who’s running for every office.
Downticket races are extremely important. It’s where the bench is created for upticket races in future years. And it is especially useful to concentrate on them in off-years when a few thousand people can create some significant change.
To your question, yes I do down to a very excellent candidate for soil and water commissioner and potential county commissioner in about four years.
The way things were starting to look, we needed a good shot of good news to keep us motivated, however long-term pointless the horse race may be. For one thing, there are voters out there who mainly want to back a winner. They are, unfortunately, the ones who could swing the swing states to our side.
I’m thinking what counts is the last interview OBama gave with Christie about an hour ago after they finished their tour. Mayors and senators in tow, the two stood in solid respect for each other, the politics be damned and did what they were all elected to do, take care of the people.
After years and years of near zero governing, the peoples’ care held hostage the take away was a moment where the power returned to government.
Christie may have demonstrated real leadership in his powerful move to set aside partisanship this week and focus instead on doing his job. It will bode well for him for re-election and maybe more. Just a strong strong moment that set Romney’s snide moves out in the cold.
Christie deserves credit for being decent enough to tell the truth about Obama’s actions. He’ll help his national status, but may will be drummed out of his own party.
Respectfully disagree. Some Rep’s, like Christie, are showing what may be the future of the Rep Party and that is to shutdown the TParty no compromise position and replace it with an acknowledgement of govt’s strength in the right circumstances. Sandy doesn’t seem to want to take any prisoners. She just bitch slapped the Party of Deniers in the face.
I doubt he’s be “drummed out” of his party. He’s just the loud-mouthed abusive daddy figure that these folks crave and will listen to. He could possibly change that party of screaming fools. Most of them need a good spanking, they know it, and he’s just the one to give it to them.
Disgusting, I know. But that seems to be the way these folks operate. Logic, reason, rational discourse? No way. It’s all about discipline with the mouth-breathers.
I don’t know — these people are so nuts that even a photo op with Obama has destroyed candidates. I guess it depends on whether the teabaggers retain their power in the party after the election. If they do, a blast of “RINO” could be all it takes to wreck any hopes he had for getting through the primaries for national office.
We got our early votes in today and can now spend the last few days working on GOTV. Early voting is fairly heavy in our county, but down a bit in the neighboring community where Indiana University is. Don’t know quite what to make of that.