Dems Work On Getting Out The Vote
I've wrote before I've never understood all the whining over low voter turnout. Who cares how many people show up to vote when the end result might well be the same? The only time I care is when I hear from like minded people that don't vote.
About the only reason I can come up with for wanting everyone to vote is it kinda justifies whatever happens after the vote: 50.5 people can elect candidates and pass legislation to screw the other 49.5% and it's ok because everyone voted. Hey, majority rules, right?
Over at the Sacramento Bee, Dan Walters looks at Democratic efforts to increase voter registration numbers and thus the Democratic majority. Never mind that it's easy enough to register to vote in this state as it is. But Dan comes up with a good point: "Certainly some of the new registrants would cast ballots, but raising overall registration numbers will likely mean a further decline in turnout percentages, perhaps markedly so.".
In other words, if you raise the number of registered voters, but most still stay away from the polls, that might actually give us lower participation statistically. Wouldn't that be something?
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As an aside, a similar article appeared in the Santa Rosa Press- Democrat earlier this summer bemonaning low voter turnout and efforts to get more people registered. Regular contributor to the P-D comments section, and Democrat partisan, Rick O'Shay commented (as best I remember), "If all these people that aren't voting voted, you Republicans would never hold another office in this country again.".I replied, "Thanks for your admission that if all the people who have no idea what's going on and have little, if any, interest in politics voted, the Democrats would gain an advantage".
That's about the only time I remember him not having some sort of comeback.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:17 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Perhaps if Dem party used fear tactics like Repos incessantly use I'm sure they would be able to increase their party turnout a whole lot better.
Leading the repo fear list:
"Illegals". Just how in the world do the repo contenders plan to deal with the estimated 11 million? Front runner Trump, for example, will build a bigger wall(s) and deport them expeditiously. What a crock. It took Hitler, with a totalitarian regime 7 years (1938 -1945) to roundup and kill 6 million Jews. We're going to round up and deport 11 million in less time? How?
Apparently, he has revised his scheme to include some sort of "merit system". Sounds loopy-hole to me.
Then there is that time honored Repo fear tactic - Taxes! Oh, gawd, they're (Dems) are not only coming for your Cleaver family way of life, they're also coming for your "hard earned" money. Be sure to buy one of Repo endorsed, wallet lockers, today!
And. of course, war has always been a good sell. We need to be at war with somebody all the time or we're not American enough. And don't forget those tax cuts right before we go to war to sweeten the sell. Always successful. It's a good thing that the Greatest Generation who actually paid for their wars and made the sacrifices necessary to fight them are just about tapsed out.
Let's face it, Repos are much better at fear mongering. I know my fingernails are all bitten down to the nubs.
"Who cares how many people show up to vote when the end result might well be the same? "
What does this even mean?
I wish I had more time b/c this is a very important disconnect/question and the current party system - at least the local version - tends to support this - due to a lack of resources and interest.
What happens is - at least the Democratic Party - which seems to be the only working party right now - focuses only on their own members when going door to door.
Nationwide - in the Democratic Party - this argument comes up dressed as the 50 state strategy (or not). Ie if we should focus on only the battle-ground states or spend resources and time in, say, Louisiana.
Your question puts the cart before the horse. First of all we never, ever know what is going to happen - not really. Polls are only best guesses.
Second of all and most importantly the goal is to govern, not dictate and that requires consent from the governed in a mature system of government. Consent of the governed means we want people to vote.
Now, understand, that your extremist view shared by many other libertarians and Freedom Caucus Republicans is that government is an encumberance, not something of value. So, it is in your interest to have as few people vote so government does lose the consent.
The question I have for your is...what next? Do you want another revolution or civil war to get back to the limited government that was possible when we had a agrarian-based economy?
"Thanks for your admission that if all the people who have no idea what's going on and have little, if any, interest in politics voted, the Democrats would gain an advantage"
Or - is it that people have been trained not to go to the polls by people, led by Republicans and Libertarians who believe that government sucks and good government is the worst.
Please, view Paul Weyrich's goo goo complex quote (just Google . He is speaking to religious conservatives here so it doesn't apply to you, but this is the strategy that we are living through to this day.
"Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
Also important is a great article by a traditional Republican about the danger of the Freedom Caucus that has Barry Goldwater's (via Nancy Reagan) "just say no (to government)" at heart.
“My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones.”
- Goldwater.
So yes, your question is anathema to governing and democracy. We do need more people voting and that is even more important than how they vote. We should be agreeing that we want people to vote and all working to accomplish this. Then we should all be working to argue for our ideas. You know - competition.
btw, this important article in the nyt today by Geoffrey Kabaservice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/opinion/anarchy-in-the-house.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0
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