After two years -- actually longer -- of watching a plethora of candidates jockeying for position, it comes to the big show between the final two on Nov. 4. John McCain and Barack Obama are the finalists in the great beauty contest we call a free election. Add a handful of minor and fringe candidates, and those are your choices for President.
You already know a little something about McCain and Obama. There's plenty of opportunity to learn about the candidates. If you spent the last two years in cold storage, this column may be the wrong place for you right now. Or not.
It's tradition among the print media to endorse certain candidates a few days before an election, and in my years in the newsroom I've made my share of endorsements (talk about a heady dose of power here). And while the voters may or may not take these endorsements seriously, the candidates certainly do. I remember being asked by a lot of candidates for a sneak preview, and one in particular an incumbent councilman in Bullhead City, Arizona) made it a point to bug me about it just about every time he talked to me.
The endorsement game, at least in the newsroom, also pits the editorial staff against the owners of the publication. Many newspaper owners, whether they know a lick about the business or not, see this as a chance to flash a little muscle, and the editors may or may not see eye to eye with the boss. Sometimes the process of making endorsements leaves bruised feelings, pitched battles, blood on the newsroom floor, resignations, the whole bit. I've seen it.
But never mind that. This is going to be a crucial election. Times are hard right now. The economy has, to all intents and purposes, collapsed. Folks are watching their retirement plans spiraling downward as if propelled by a mighty flush. Able-bodied people who want to work are not doing so. Jobs are being outsourced, either to some foreign land or to some juy who just slipped the border and will work for little bit of nothing. Health care seems to be available to only the top or bottom ends of the bell curve, leaving many in the middle with few options. Add an unpopular war, concerns about the environmet, countries like Iran and North Korea being run by a bunch of lunatics. Whoever gets elected here is going to have a full plate.
So here's my endorsement for president: If you need other folks to tell you how to vote, then don't vote.
Seriously.
If you're choosing Obama because he's black or is a spellbinding speaker, stay home. If you choose McCain because he's white, a war hero, or because his opponent's name is so similar to Osama (as a friend of mine swears she's doing), the polling booth is too adult a place for you. Go play with blocks instead.
If you can't stay sober long enough to make an intelligent decision, find a bar and get likkered up instead. Our nation survived Warren G. Harding; it will survive without the likes of you.
If you're so fixed on a single issue at the expense of everything else, don't bother voting. If you choose a candidate simply because of race, gender, or geographical location, do us all a favor. Stay home.
If you vote for someone because your spouse, parent, labor union, boss, or pastor says so, then you haven't voted. You've just sold your precious vote to someone else. Election laws prohibit someone from casting more than one vote, although groups such as ACORN seem to have a thing about circumventing those laws. Voting from the marching orders of someone else actually accomplishes what the ACORNs of the world could never really hope for. You've just given that person an extra vote.
If you know the issues fairly well, have pretty much made up your mind by now, and can make an intelligent decision between candidates, then this is the course of action:
Get to your polling place any way you can, check in, make sure the ballot is right side up, punch the holes or pull the levers, make sure the ballot is punched all the way through, and turn it in.
See, despite what your local media, Ad Council, and all the well-meaning busybodies have to say, there are worse things than not voting.
Voting is a powerful and dangerous tool. Too much so for it to be left in the hands of the uninformed and uncaring.
You already know a little something about McCain and Obama. There's plenty of opportunity to learn about the candidates. If you spent the last two years in cold storage, this column may be the wrong place for you right now. Or not.
It's tradition among the print media to endorse certain candidates a few days before an election, and in my years in the newsroom I've made my share of endorsements (talk about a heady dose of power here). And while the voters may or may not take these endorsements seriously, the candidates certainly do. I remember being asked by a lot of candidates for a sneak preview, and one in particular an incumbent councilman in Bullhead City, Arizona) made it a point to bug me about it just about every time he talked to me.
The endorsement game, at least in the newsroom, also pits the editorial staff against the owners of the publication. Many newspaper owners, whether they know a lick about the business or not, see this as a chance to flash a little muscle, and the editors may or may not see eye to eye with the boss. Sometimes the process of making endorsements leaves bruised feelings, pitched battles, blood on the newsroom floor, resignations, the whole bit. I've seen it.
But never mind that. This is going to be a crucial election. Times are hard right now. The economy has, to all intents and purposes, collapsed. Folks are watching their retirement plans spiraling downward as if propelled by a mighty flush. Able-bodied people who want to work are not doing so. Jobs are being outsourced, either to some foreign land or to some juy who just slipped the border and will work for little bit of nothing. Health care seems to be available to only the top or bottom ends of the bell curve, leaving many in the middle with few options. Add an unpopular war, concerns about the environmet, countries like Iran and North Korea being run by a bunch of lunatics. Whoever gets elected here is going to have a full plate.
So here's my endorsement for president: If you need other folks to tell you how to vote, then don't vote.
Seriously.
If you're choosing Obama because he's black or is a spellbinding speaker, stay home. If you choose McCain because he's white, a war hero, or because his opponent's name is so similar to Osama (as a friend of mine swears she's doing), the polling booth is too adult a place for you. Go play with blocks instead.
If you can't stay sober long enough to make an intelligent decision, find a bar and get likkered up instead. Our nation survived Warren G. Harding; it will survive without the likes of you.
If you're so fixed on a single issue at the expense of everything else, don't bother voting. If you choose a candidate simply because of race, gender, or geographical location, do us all a favor. Stay home.
If you vote for someone because your spouse, parent, labor union, boss, or pastor says so, then you haven't voted. You've just sold your precious vote to someone else. Election laws prohibit someone from casting more than one vote, although groups such as ACORN seem to have a thing about circumventing those laws. Voting from the marching orders of someone else actually accomplishes what the ACORNs of the world could never really hope for. You've just given that person an extra vote.
If you know the issues fairly well, have pretty much made up your mind by now, and can make an intelligent decision between candidates, then this is the course of action:
Get to your polling place any way you can, check in, make sure the ballot is right side up, punch the holes or pull the levers, make sure the ballot is punched all the way through, and turn it in.
See, despite what your local media, Ad Council, and all the well-meaning busybodies have to say, there are worse things than not voting.
Voting is a powerful and dangerous tool. Too much so for it to be left in the hands of the uninformed and uncaring.
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