Shall we Vote

Don’t you just love elections and campaigns and politicians? Someone must think we do because the media is blasting us with news reports, opinions, and paid advertising that is somehow supposed to help us make a decision come next Tuesday. The problem is there is so much spin in politics these days it’s hard for the average voter to sift through and find the truth. Or anything even resembling the truth.

Here in Texas we have a jokester, a grandma, the incumbent Republican, a Democrat with high hopes, and a Libertarian who hasn’t a snowball’s chance of winning, vying for the top state office. When the campaign first started I decided I would vote for the candidate who refrained from making the election about how bad the other guy is and make it about what the people of Texas need in a state leader.

Oh, but I forgot. Politics is all about power and making sure your party has control of said power. Oops! I guess that leaves the people somewhere out in the cold. Hello. Here we are. Can you hear us?

Partisan politics is so entrenched in government that I don’t even remember all the good reasons the two-party system was developed. I remember I learned that in Civics a hundred years ago, but the last twenty years of campaigns has obscured all the positives and highlighted the negatives.

So here I am less than a week from Election Day, and I have no idea who is going to get a nod from me for governor of this great state of Texas. (Oops, those political ads just imprint on the brain sometimes.)

If I go by my original plan, I’d have to vote for the Libertarian. I don’t think he has said anything nasty about the other candidates. Actually, I don’t know what he has said because the man gets next to zero media coverage. Which is too bad, really. He might actually have something worth hearing.

My husband doesn’t vote. Hasn’t for years from when he got fed up with the status quo of political behavior. It’s awful tempting to follow his lead. Just leave the mess alone. But then I’ll be loosing sight of another lesson I learned in Civics lo those many years ago. We have a responsibility to vote, even when we are disillusioned and think the whole system is in the crapper. What would happen if we all decided not to vote?