There’s been discussion among Democrats about the Montana Republican Party decision to hold caucuses this year instead of a popular vote to decide how their delegates will vote at the Republican convention. Read all about it here, and here.
That’s an interesting discussion. Next I will consult the Democrats about their view on whether or not we should refinance our mortgage. I mean, as long as they are meddling …
Voting is overrated. It’s a right, but it’s only one. Taken outside the others, isolated, it’s an exercise in futility. A right to choose between a hard right wing Republican or a centrist right-leaning Democrats is kind of a silly right, and I don’t blame people for turning away, for going to the beach on election day.
The “right” to vote carries with it some duties, and most people ignore those duties. I mean, it’s only one vote, won’t change the outcome, and these days we don’t even know if it will be counted. It might even be flipped to the other side. But we are required by tradition to put the body politic on a pedestal. I don’t. Most people are smart – smart enough not to waste their time on political candidates. Some of us ain’t so smart.
Let’s be blunt – it’s not about voting. It’s about deliberation and dissemination of information on which to deliberate. The American media is perhaps the worst in the industrialized world, maybe the non-industrialized too. They are all about horse race. They don’t cover issues. Take this Obama-Clinton race. Most people have no clue where either candidate stands on important issues. So is the act of voting in such a vacuum something we should consecrate?
We don’t get much information. Candidates, on one hand, know all there is to know about us. We’re polled to death. They know we want health care reform. They know we want the Bush tax cuts repealed. They know we want out of Iraq. They know we like Social Security and want it preserved.
They know all of that stuff, but are powerless to give us what we want. Real political power in this country is in the corporations and wealthy families that own most of the assets outside the commons. They determine what is attainable in the political sphere.
But politicians have to face us every two or four years. So they get cagey. They entice us with promises that will be forgotten the day after they are elected. We know very little about what candidates intend to do once elected. New faces enter office with high ideals, but soon run into hard cold reality. Here’s some of the basics:
1. The public pays very little attention to what goes on in the political sphere. There’s a great flurry of interest and activity around election day, but it is unfocused and quickly evaporates.
2. Office holders can do the right thing by the people who elected them, but there’s usually no reward – in fact, they are punished as they see campaign contributions go away to potential opponents.
3. Office holders can do the wrong thing by the people who elected them. There’s usually no punishment. In fact, they will be rewarded by a media that allows them to operate behind a curtain, and campaign contributions rolling in the door.
So here is the choice that Jon Tester, for example, currently faces: Do the right thing, get no reward, face stiff opposition in the next election and have fewer campaign funds to operate with. Do the wrong thing, have the media on your side, and run a well-oiled campaign next time around.
It takes an exceptional person to do the right things under these circumstances. Most fold under the pressure. Some, like Conrad Burns, came into office already folded.
Anyway, about voting – it’s no big deal. If we had an open media, if we had public financing of campaigns, then voting would be right up there on the list of cherished freedoms. But we don’t, and voting, all by itself, means very little.
Piece of Mindful 