I know that this election is super-important and no matter which
candidate you are supporting, I can only assume that with the way passions are running,
you are desperate to make certain that your candidate or your ballot issue wins. You
are fervent in your beliefs and you are cringing in fear that the other guy will win or
that your ballot proposition will lose.
In the heat of all of this, I have often felt guilty for not
volunteering to get on the phones and make calls, hoping to sway voters, speaking out for
my guy or the propositions I feel strongly about. I know how vital to the future of
this country getting the right people into office is and if I really feel that strongly, I
should be willing to spend a few hours calling other voters.
Today I found out why that would have been a very, very bad idea.
I'm not surprised. I think I knew it all along and for once a clearer head
ruled my emotional heart.
I had a call from someone trying to convince me to vote for a
controversial ballot proposition. It is one that I have not made up my mind about
yet because I just haven't read up on it yet. I think I'm voting no, but I was
willing to listen to the other side (and no, I won't say which of our many controversial
ballot propositions this is!)
Normally I would just hang up the phone because I just don't want to
think about the election right now, but she seemed to be a nice, polite lady and I decided
to hear what she had to say.
I told her I had not made up my mind but was leaning toward a no
vote. She gave me her spiel about why I should vote yes. I asked questions she
couldn't answer and she went to check her cheat sheet.
She admitted she did not live in California, but was calling from
outside the state. When I brought up the misgivings I had about the proposition she
told me that I should look at the people who were paying for it and realize that she isn't
getting any money for doing calls, and the company she is working for isn't making any
money by working to get it passed.
I could tell she was getting emotional, and I was getting emotional.
The discussion heated up and I told her how tired I was of all the ads and the
calls and the conflicting information. I told her she sounded like a nice lady and I
would be willling to go to the web site to check out her information, but that I knew
people who were also nice people who were voting no on it and I just needed to decide for
myself.
That's when she told me that the people I knew were working
for big corporations and she was not. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I lost my temper, yelled that she was making unwarranted assumptions and slammed
the phone back in its cradle.
The way my heart was pounding and I was so angry when I ended the
conversation made me realize that given how tempers are at the moment, I would do NOBODY
any good by trying to convince someone they should vote for a candidate or a proposition
that I feel strongly about. Though I am mostly a quiet, taciturn sort of person most
of the time, when you get my emotions involved, I can get very angry very quickly.
This is NOT the sort of person you want manning a phone bank!
After I hung up on her, I went to the League of Women Voters web site
and had my feelings confirmed by reading their arguments pro and con and remembering why
it was that I was learning toward "no" already. The League recommends a
"no" vote.
I'm voting no.
No matter who gets your vote, or what you are voting on the ballot
propositions this year, please VOTE. It's so important. This country should do
what they do in Australia and Luxemborg (and perhaps other countries) and make it
mandatory to vote. In Australia, you get fined if you don't vote.
That should do away with the threat of voter suppression!
A few weeks back, my friend Ruth brought me a pair of sox she had seen that she thought I would like.
I seem to wear (and buy) a lot of patterned sox and I thought these would be perfect for the next time I was reviewing a Shakespeare play. We are off to see MacBeth: the Radio Play by the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble tonight and this seems to be the perfect occasion for my Shakespeare sox to make their debut, even though nobody will even see them. But I will and it will help get me in the mood.
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