Voting Booth Conversions

153 Voting Booth Conversions

It happens all the time…. Well, maybe not all the time, but a lot. You go into the voting booth, knowing exactly what you’re going to do and then, suddenly, change your mind or your heart or whatever it is you use to make decisions.

You’ve seen all the ads. You’ve read the paper, watched the TV news, heard the radio news and the talk shows. And you know exactly what you’re going to do… and then, you don’t do it.

Oh, there are exceptions. Everyone –absolutely everyone -- voted for Hubert Humphrey, except not enough to do away with the Lyndon Johnson war. At least that’s what you’re hearing now.

For the most recent war, Iraq II, we hear the mounting death tolls every day. We see the splinters that have become Iraq. We make up our minds to vote out the scoundrels who put us “over-there,” and then what? Do we do it?

We participate in polls that say America thinks Congress is doing a rotten job. Throw the bums out. But when we’re asked about our own Representative or Senator we say “Oh… well, he’s doing a good job. I’m going to vote for him – or her, or it.

So it’s YOUR guy who’s okay and throw the rest of them out.

Does that work?

But the issues in 2006 aren’t Iraq and the economy. There’s only one issue: who controls the major political parties.

The average American doesn’t really give a hot rock about politics. The average American wants a smooth ride and not too much fighting along the way. The average American isn’t a zealot for or against anything, the average American is okay with compromise. Maybe even a zealot for compromise.

The Party in Power has been taken over by religious extremists and their defenders. The Party Out of Power doesn’t stand for anything. Its been taken over by deer-in-the-headlights extremists, if you can call frozen stiff as an extreme. Probably you can.

Recent news items indicate anecdotally that heavy Republican areas imbedded in so-called “Blue States” are ready to vote Democratic themselves, having had enough of the war, the phony lift in the economy and the religious intolerance of what the Republicans have become: The American Baath Party.

With any luck, the gomers and goobers in western New York and northern Pennsylvania and Orange County, California will have had their conversions to blue-ness before getting into the voting booth instead of while standing inside one.

But don’t trust that. Hanging chads were not just an aberration of the late 20^th century. They have become a way of life. Or maybe a way of death.

I'm Wes Richards, my opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.

(c) 2006 WJR