ELECTION REFLECTIONS
Tuesday, October 1st, 2002A famous Republican once said, “There is no lobby for the unemployed.”
I’m guessing that the first folks who became disenfranchised with their vote were homeless people, SRO tenants, the unemployed, ex- ENRON employees, and the environmentallyselected couch potato-ists. Why are there fewer and fewer people showing up at the polls? Is this a trend? What does it mean, where will it end, and what will it look like when it gets there?
Yes, there is a trend. Yes, it is growing nationally. I don’t know where it’s headed, what it will look like, and I ain’t going there. As for why, anytime you get a large group of people doing something it will elicit a large number of opinions about why it is happening. I will go there and try to provide some insight to my reasoning. Voter turnout is a symptom of something not written in our constitution, and that is, a vote of no confidence in the government regardless of party. Politicians rank lower in the public opinion polls than repo-men, but higher than West Nile Virus carrying mosquitoes.
