For a couple of months we’ve been subjected to the endless media assault. It seems that journalists and bloggers just can’t stop talking about the 2012 election. Funny thing though. Election Day isn’t a year a way. It’s today. November 8, 2011, the polls are open, but hardly anyone seems to care.
It’s an odd but typical juxtaposition. In the run-up to this Election Day, the press has mostly been talking about elections that are still a year away. And those skewed priorities mirror the traditionally low voter turnout during the odd-numbered years.
Here in Baltimore, only about 4% of eligible voters bothered showing up for primary elections in September. And since, like many localities in America, Baltimore is essentially a one-party town, the primaries are at least as important as the general election, if not more so; winning the Democratic nomination here is akin to winning office.
Today, a similarly negligible number of voters are expected to find their way to the polls. Throughout America, most citizens will blow off their local elections, assuming they even realize that ballots are being cast, which is not a given considering the paucity of press coverage.
Yet when you think about it, the less prestigious offices up for grabs in off-year local elections are, in many ways, more important than the national offices that demand so much of our attention. The people we elect to national government are mostly cookie-cutter, television politicians with layers of staff and bodyguard between us and them. They run off to Washington and do things that usually affect you indirectly, like pass laws about business regulation and foreign policy, or get caught up in a tawdry sex scandals. But because national politicians are constantly on TV, we identify with them, perhaps far more than we should.
Maybe you cried tears of joy when your fellow Americans elected a black president in 2008, thereby relieving you of all your liberal guilt, at least until the next time you re-watch The Wire. Or maybe you hate Barack Hussein Obama’s guts because while you don’t actually know what socialism is, you absolutely despise it and are convinced he was sent by Kenyan/Russian Muslims to put it in the water supply.
Whatever. Let it go.
National politicians are important, but by and large it’s local politicians who directly affect your life in very practical ways.
Among other things, local politicians decide your property tax rate, run the public schools, initiate or shoot down local development projects, hire and fire the cops, firemen, and teachers, decide how fast you can drive down the street, and whether or not there’ll be a radar robot shooting pictures and mailing tickets when you lean too hard on the gas pedal.
In my local elections the offices being contested are Mayor, City Council Member, City Council President, and Comptroller (the person who oversees and approves how the money gets spent). There’s also a couple of ballot initiatives, one to create a permanent ancillary schools fund, and another that would amend the city charter to lower the age of eligibility for people serving on the City Council.
You know. Important kinda shit.
So I guess what I’m saying is this. If you’re committed to not voting because the system’s fucked and you refuse to lend it any credence by participating, then that’s cool. And if you never vote because you’re too lazy or disinterested, that’s not cool, but hey, at least you’re consistent, and it’s your life, so fine.
But don’t be one of those people who’s listening to talk radio during the commute this morning, gets all fired up about a national election that’s still a year away, and then doesn’t bother to find your way to a polling place today.
I know, you’re busy, bla bla bla. But if you actually care about politics, then really care about it. And besides, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t have to wait in any lines.
Me? I’m gonna vote for the Green candidate for City Council Member and the Libertarian for City Council president, knowing that neither one of them has a snowball’s chance in hell (and in truth I wouldn’t want the Libertarian to win anyway), but a
t least I have a way to officially say: Fuck the two-party Duopoly!
I’ll probably do write-ins for Mayor and Comptroller. And then I’ll vote No on more money for schools, in part because it will pass overwhelmingly regardless, and in part because I think the problem with public schools is so profound and systemic that this fund won’t actually accomplish anything other than making us feel good and kicking the problem further down the road. But I’ll vote Yes for lowering the age of City Council eligibility, because if you’re old enough to go kill people in Iraq for reasons that are still beyond my comprehension even as we prepare to finally leave, then you’re old enough to hire a robot to give me another speeding ticket.