This is the most important election of our lifetime and you need to vote. With the fiscal cliff fast approaching, America is at a defining point in our nation’s history. No election has ever been so important since…2008.
You had to vote in the 2008 election. It was the most important election of our lifetime because the country was mired in a great economic collapse of a global scale that rivaled anything since the great depression. It was the most important election of your lifetime since…2004
You have to vote in the 2004 election. The country was trapped in a war in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the precipice of losing a generation of young men and just like the Vietnam War. This was the most important election in your lifetime since…2000.
Okay, I’ll give you that 2000 wasn’t an important election.
1996…yeah, that really came down to cigars, so I think we can pass on that one.
I don’t need to give you a history lesson, but we can jump to some other elections in our history where we had extremely serious issues being decided. 1980 where the economy was in the port-a-pot and turmoil in the Middle East was mounting, 1976 where the nation had no trust in its elected leaders and needed the mashed potatoes equivalent of a president to make us feel good inside, 1968 where the country was in the Vietnam War at its most unpopular time.
We’ve been here before, the issues have been just as serious before. While not every election is important, as 1988 through 2000 might show us, we still need to go out there and vote. I’m just sick of this cliché that “THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME”. I wasn’t around for 1968, but a lot of voters out there were around for at least 1980, and probably 95% of the actual voters this year were eligible to vote in 2004.
But while the 2000 election might not have seemed that important at the time, the choice between the idiot son and the boring brother in law suddenly became so important on September 11. You’re not just going into the voting booth to select someone to lead us through the problems we currently have, but you need to vote for someone with the ability to make the right decisions no matter what comes down the road.
Every election is important, except Clerk of the Court. I still don’t get that.
But when it comes to clichés, the other one I hear this election season, mainly from Republicans in Maryland but you will hear this from any seriously out-gunned candidate, “This is our best chance to (insert office held by same party for 20 years)”. Sometimes it is, sometimes you have a crazy millionaire third party candidate that is pulling 20% of the vote like a mini version of Ross Perot. But you need to whip up the vote and get people out there. Sure 6 years ago when Michael Steele was running for that same Senate seat I hear this mentioned about so often, he was neck and neck in the polls and had money and ads on television, but this time, no this time is different, this is our best chance.
You know what cliché I haven’t heard this time though, “well if you don’t vote you can’t complain about what the other guy’s doing.” I think the reason we don’t hear this anymore is because the internet made it so everybody can complain about everything, yeah I’m looking at you internet troll (ok, I can’t see you and that’s why you write the stuff you do). I think as a society we have given up on the idea that people will magically stop complaining.
Another one I haven’t heard, and it surprises me because of all the negative ads, “I’m voting for the lesser of two evils”. I think we’ve actually become so polarized that nobody can admit that their guy doesn’t always smell like roses anymore. I remember in 2004 talking to my extremely liberal friend and both of us were embarrassed over our candidate for president. This year, Biden says Romney wants to put black people in chains and the campaign doubles down on it, while Romney stumbles in the debate and Republicans blame the moderator.
I’m going to vote. You should vote. It is an important election…honest.
Voting becomes easier when you see your vote actually count. To achieve this there needs to be some reform.
First, the selection of electoral votes from each state need to be proportioned out according to the popular vote count. For example, Maryland’s 10 electoral votes would be cast in accordance to the vote tally. The winner, instead of taking all, would take the proportion earned in the vote. Candidate A received 50% of the vote, Candidate B got 40% and Candidate C received 10%. Accordingly Candidate A would get 5 votes, B would get 4 and C the 1. Suddenly Maryland might matter a little more to the candidates. So would much smaller states that only get 3 votes. This seems paramount to me considering states like Texas and California are getting more say in who occupies the White House than smaller states. That needs to be fixed.
Second, restore Congress to its representative ratio of one representative to every 30,000 residents. This would replace the current ratio of one representative to every 600,000 residents. These elected officials behave like fools with the public trust because they can easily hide from us. Congressional districts can be gerrymandered to suit currently corrupt standards. No wonder responsiveness from Congress is an automated reply that they intend to ignore your concerns.
I’m sure there are flaws in my thinking and some of you will point them out to me. I welcome it. If nothing else it may start a conversation that will do something to destroy much of the reason people choose not to be part of the process.
Enjoy your day.
Why not scrap the electoral college altogether?
There’s all this talk about the 47% comment from Romney and Obama wanting to be president for all 100% of the country, but the reality is they are all pandering to the voters in swing states. If you had to run a campaign for all 100% of the voters in all 50 states, things might change a little bit.
On the same note, we should probably have a national primary election date as well so that Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina don’t have an outsized say in who the President is.
Scraping the electoral collage would only create on the national level what already happens in MD where 3 political subdivisions dictate to the other 21 how the state will be run. To do so would turn our national elections into basically an east coast and west coast affair. The electoral college is a blend of the compromise the founding fathers made when when creating the framework of Congress – the Senate (2 per state) and House (based on population). It also serves as a protector of the nation (electors are not obligated to vote for the candidate that received the most votes) should the voters choose a candidate that threatens to undermine the Constitution and put the country at risk.
I do agree that a single national primary date does have merit.
Some things the founders put into the Constitution were a bad idea, such as having Senators chosen by state legislatures. The Senate currently is the one area that a legislature can’t gerrymander, but if they were selected by the legislatures as the founders called for, in essence, you have a gerrymandered U.S. Senate as well.
The way that we have changed the Senate would aleviate the concern for minority representation in government to allow for us to scrap the electoral college while maintaining minority representation in Government. But also, we can only point to very few elections where the electoral college and the popular vote were different, and there were so many questions about the legitimacy of those administrations.
The only way to abolish the electoral college would be with a Constitutional Amendment which would have no chance of getting super majority votes in both houses of Congress needed to get it out to the states. Even then the proposed amendment would not get 3/4’s of the states to ratify. This is an interesting topic for discussion/speculation but has no real chance of passage so it is a dead issue.
So, FACT CHECK, you support the 17th Amendment? So now the States have absolutely no say in Federal Law. The reason behind the Founders’ inclusion of the States in such a manner (prior to this amendment) was to limit Federal power. By having State legislatures pick their Senators, they were ensured a “seat at the table”. Now, States have no seat there. And we see things like Obamacare, which half the states filed legal suit against. And we have issues where the federal government is suing states for their individual laws. Texas voter ID and Arizona SB1070 come to mind. If senators were chosen by the state goverments, I doubt we’d see things like this happening. And, the citizens of the state would still have a direct say in the choosing of senators. Folks running for state legislatures would campaign, in part, on who they’d like to send to the Senate. And if the citizens didn’t like who their legislators sent to the Senate, they can vote them out in the next election.
No, The Founders had that one right the first time.
Jeff
I disagree that professional politicians in State legislatures know more than the people do.
Look at the type of people you get when you have State legislatures choosing. Treasurer Nancy Kopp, a real voice of reason, oh that’s right, she’s a rubber stamp for the Speaker of the House in Maryland.
But let’s look at the makeup of State legislatures across the country prior to the 2010 election. At that point it was 25 state legislatures completely controlled by Democrats, 15 completely controlled by Republicans and 10 split between the two bodies. This would have meant that the U.S. Senate population would have been 60-40 favoring Democrats, ironically the same breakdown as it was at the time based on the actual Senate body looked like. With this in mind, Obamacare still passes. The difference is, when Ted Kennedy dies, Scott Brown doesn’t win because Massachuttes picks another Democrat as opposed to the people getting to choose.
I would argue we see States suing the federal government exactly because of State-wide popular elections, but not of Senators, of Attorney Generals. They answer to the voters, they can’t rely on gerrymandered districts, and because of that they have to be responsive. In yours, and the founders intention, Senators don’t have to be responsive, their only concern is to the professional politicians in Annapolis. No thanks.
Gotta keep the electoral college. A proportional idea would be great. You also have to keep the direct elections of Senators. Imagine the back room deals that would go on to give someone a senate seat. Remember Blago? Imagine that going on across the country.