Primary Colors

Those of you who read me regularly, know that I don't write on my blog regularly. At least not anymore. Perhaps I'll improve on that. I might blog about my new employment, or what happened over Memorial day weekend, and other exciting happenings in my life. But today, today I voted in the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, and so I want to share some political thoughts again. Everybody who hates me talking about politics, altogether say "yay!"

To begin, I should state that I live in a largely Republican precinct, and that it is just a primary for the gubernatorial race. There is only one candidate for governor from the Republican party this year so there was no primary. But it's an open primary, hence independents like myself and Republicans can vote in the primary. I voted today at 5:05 PM. The polls opened at 6:00 AM. I was the 27th person to vote in my precinct today. In 11 hours, they had fewer than 30 people vote. This makes me sad.

So many people have died so that we have the right to vote in Democratic elections, so many people have fought, marched, and worked consistently so that we all can vote. And while I have abstained from voting at times because I felt uneducated about the candidates and feel strongly that our right to vote is accompanied by an obligation to vote knowledgeably, I am shocked that so few people made their way to the polls today. I know people don't vote in primaries as much as in general elections. I know that people don't vote in gubernatorial and senatorial elections as often as presidential elections, that they vote even less in local elections. But it makes me sad. Why do we get so passionate about presidential elections and forget to vote for the people who have so much more control over our immediate lives? Why don't people educate themselves on all of the primary candidates and vote so that they can help determine the candidates in the general election? So often I hear others lament that they feel as though they're voting for the lesser of two evils! And so many of them failed to vote in the primary, where they could have chosen a non-evil... I'm sad, vote. Please, vote. And vote knowledgeably, it doesn't take that long to look into the candidates, learn the distinctions between them, and vote for the person who can best represent you.

While I'm on the topic, I want to say something about the last presidential election a little bit. Many of you know that I love President Obama, that I donated and worked for his campaign, and that I believe he has the potential to be the greatest president I will see in my lifetime. With that being said, I have something to say about other supporters of President Obama. He ran with a campaign slogan of "Yes, We Can!" a slogan garnered from his concession speech after the New Hampshire Primary returns showed him losing to Hillary Clinton. If you haven't heard the speech, I reccommend you watch it on youtube. It's one of his best. So that became the slogan, it was on bumper stickers. Good times, it's an inspiring message, if we work together we can change the world and our nation. Listen to the speech, that's the message. November 7, 2008 Barack Obama wins the presidential election, November 8, 2008 bumper stickers appear on cars saying "Yes, We did!"

I shake my head everytime I see that. The message was that together, working as communities, we can change and improve our world. On November 7 the majority of voting Americans voted for a man who believes in that premise and wants to enact a type of that change. That's all. Yes, We Can isn't a slogan saying "Yes, we can elect a black man president" or "yes, we can elect a guy with a funny name president" or even "yes, we can elect a democrat president." Yes We Can is a slogan saying that we can improve our world, that by working together we can enact real, positive change. Yes We Did what? Ugh. Yes, we can, but we haven't done yet. Why doesn't everybody realize that? No one man can do everything that needs to be done. Just getting the man you want to lead you elected accomplished something, but not everything. Nobody should say "Yes, we did."