There’s an Election?

I find myself in a brief baseball hole since the World Series doesn’t start until this Friday. This allows me to think about other stuff, so I better take advantage of this four day window.

Ok, so there’s an election coming up. The reason I know this is because I can’t avoid the political banners and signs that festoon nearly every major intersection in the west end. But for the life of me I couldn’t tell you a single candidates’ name. I could probably pick a couple of them out of a lineup because I would recognize their faces from the banners, but I couldn’t put a name with a face if my life depended on it. Another weird thing is that although every time I find myself at one of those west end intersections I am careful to read every word of the signs, I have not yet been able to identify which political party these candidates are aligned with. Nowhere on the signs is there any such admission. Honestly, I don’t blame them one bit.

Not only can I not put names with faces or know which party they represent, I must admit that at this point I don’t even know what office they are running for. Partly, I blame my appalling election illiteracy on spending eight of the past sixteen weeks in Maine. I do know that up there Former Governor Paul Lepage is running against a woman with blond hair…so I got that going for me. But as far as the political contests in the Old Dominion, I am hopelessly uninformed. Here’s what will happen. I will enter the voting booth on Election Day and be presented with several names with D’S and R’s next to them with the occasional L or I. Then, the ballot will tell me what office they are running for and I will make my choice based on basically zero information. So, the question is, should I vote at all?

Is it good for democracy for everyone to cast a ballot or just people who have taken the time to study the issues and candidates? What about a guy like me who long ago soured on politics to the point where his distaste for it has rendered him apolitical and apathetic? Should I cast a ballot, or let those with passionate convictions one way or another have the floor?

In the five days or so before Election Day I will receive a barrage of slick one page ads in the mail telling horror stories of what will befall the Commonwealth if so-and-so gets elected. Then the airways will be filled 24/7 with ads as each party spends all the money they raised over the past two years trying to scare the hell out of me. Nevertheless, I was always taught by my parents and most of my teachers in high school that it was my sacred duty to vote, my responsibility to participate in the franchise. So, I will vote. Maybe I’ll write in someone. I won’t vote for anyone who is running unopposed and I won’t vote for anyone with misspelled words or missing punctuation in their last minute mail appeals. I mean, I do have a few standards.