Would you vote for Al? Why or why not?

-- ann monroe (monroe@chorus.net), February 17, 2000

Answers

Um... well...

I probably *will* vote for Al... but I don't *want* to. I much prefer Bradley as a canidate, but that is looking less and less likely as time goes on.

As for why I don't want to vote for Al... two words... Tipper Gore.

KT

-- KT Hicks (kt_hicks@yahoo.com), February 17, 2000.

How about None of the Above?

-- Rob Rummel-Hudson (rhudson@digitalism.com), February 18, 2000.

voting only encourages them...

-- Dean Cullen (deancullen1@msn.com), February 19, 2000.

Psst! Hey, Dean!

You know why voting "only" encourages them? It's because they hope that next time, maybe you'll do exactly what they want, instead: Stay home.

I'll bet you anything that snappy phrase was thought up by a professional campaign manager, and planted by a shill. When you use it, you're being a sucker.

There is nothing more rebellious and potent in the American political system than a voter who gives a damn.

Sure, the pose you're taking is hip, trendy, and oh-so-cynical. I don't deny that.

But my even-more-cynical-belief-than-yours is that voting *does* matter... But people are just *told* it doesn't matter, again and again, in campaign after campaign. They're *told* they don't really care, again and again. They're *told* they're neither smart enough nor interested enough to understand the issues. And eventually, after generations of this dreck, we've actually come to be persuaded that maybe there's something to it.

Because nothing is more frightening to the professional political class in this country than a citizenry that actually votes.

Look... Campaign spending keeps going up and up, yes? But, aside from a few anomalies where people get interested *despite* how they're told to behave (Perot, McCain, Ventura), participation keeps going down, yes?

Either all that money is being senselessly wasted -- tempting to think, I agree -- or what it's buying is silence. And it keeps taking more and more money because people *want* to participate, so it keeps getting harder and harder to convince the voters to shut the fuck up, stay home, and leave it to the professionals.

This country's greatest strength and weakness can be quickly summed up:

We are the government.

The government is us.

...and when you don't do your job, well, look in the mirror next time you want to find who's to blame for the job not being done.

-- Hal O'Brien (argyll@earthlink.net), May 26, 2000.

Oh, and Ann, just to answer your question... :)

(now that the Dennis Miller rant sub-routine has finished...)

It is with great resignation that, yeah, I probably will vote for Albert, Prince of the Tennessee Valley.

Not that I'm all that enthused by Gore... But Dubya/Shrub/What-have- you just gives me the heebie-jeebies on a deep personal level, every time I see him.

And it probably won't make *that* much difference.

When I was in eighth grade, my homeroom teacher asked us, "If you were President, what would you do?" My answer was to cut a deal with my Veep to appoint me Secretary of State, and then resign.

She didn't like that answer very much. :)

She liked it less when it turned I pointed out it both answered the question, and was perfectly legal.

These days, I'd probably be more inclined to make a different deal -- I'd like to be on the Supreme Court -- but my reason is much the same: The President doesn't have *that* much power to change things, on his or her own. It's all a matter of persuasion and alliance- building.

And frankly, neither Gore nor Dubya have much of a track record that way. Dubya is "Governor" in a state where being Governor doesn't matter, and Gore was never able to get big-ticket legislation through Congress back when he was a Senator.

So... [shrug]

(And the thing I can't get over is how much Dubya seems to me like a clone of Clinton, in so many ways, and yet he still has Republican support... But I guess the enemy of my enemy, and all that...)

-- Hal O'Brien (argyll@earthlink.net), May 26, 2000.