Elections ’10: A year to forget

Did you say you voted? I’m sorry. My condolences.

Those three short sentences are not a great way to win friends and influence people, for sure, but it’s the way a lot of voters felt after the elections.

This is not a lambasting of conservative whiners, er, winners, or political do-gooders, or liberal leaners; this is a eulogy for the benignly ignorant rat pack of folks who voted for the wrong people or stood on the wrong side of issues for the wrong reasons.

Be honest, now: Did you vote for a person you did not know, did not research his or her record and didn’t have a clue as to qualifications or stances on important issues that are pertinent to the office sought?

Did you cast a ballot for a candidate and the only thing you knew about him or her was what you read on a yard sign?

Did you vote for a person or issue based on the recommendation of a family member, friend or associate?

Did you cast a ballot based strictly on party affiliation?

If you answered yes to any of those questions … shame on you!

With an average of less than 50 percent of the eligible voters taking time to cast ballots in any election (except in the presidential election years), it is the saddest state of affairs that so few care about the future of the country that good, smart people won’t exercise their right to vote.

My son, 21 and very, very smart, didn’t vote because, as he put it, “What different does it make? They are all the same, regardless of party, regardless of promises. Politicians do what they want to do to enrich themselves. Nothing changes.”

Me: “All of them? They all are out to enrich themselves?”

Him: “Every single one. No exceptions.”

As have been observed by various people over the past few decades, I can argue with a stump and declare myself the winner, but it’s hard to argue with youthful logic of that caliber.

And, it’s hard to conjure up a single politician I have watched, studied and written about in the past 45-plus years that didn’t remove his or her nose out of the public trough until they were richer than when they were first elected.

As one political sage told me several decades ago: “Any politician that loses money being in public service is an idiot.”

While we can argue the degree of relative idiocy of politicians, it’s hard to imagine anyone believing that vast majority of politicos seek public favor without wanting money or power … and most want both.

Just as it’s hard to imagine that any vote just cast for any politician on any level will change a durn thing in the way governments operate.