All politics is local.
Sep. 14th, 2010 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI voted on my way to work this morning.
In Maryland, and especially in Baltimore, the Democratic primary election is usually more relevant than the general election. For example, the most serious Republican contender in my Congressional district has raised a total of $600 so far. (No, that figure is not missing a K at the end.)
Last week I was trapped on the light rail next to two agonizingly smug hipsters who had mistaken cynicism for maturity. They spent the entire trip from University Station to Centre Street sneering about how ridiculous it was to think that anyone cared about local politics. Who's ever heard of these guys? Why would anyone care who runs for state office? What do they even do - allocate money that Maryland doesn't even have? Didn't they know that no one cared? Like, they could get elected if their mom's bridge club voted for them. ...I swear it was all I could do to keep from beating them about the head and shoulders. Ignorance does not become any cooler if you give it a facade of world-weary cynicism, guys. If you're going to be that smug about being dumb, please keep it to yourselves and don't make me suffer through it.
They're missing out on some fun local races. For example: two of the people running for Orphans Court judge in Baltimore aren't even lawyers. They don't feel that this is any kind of a problem. The main reason one of them is running is that she's unhappy with how a judgment she was involved in was ruled on by the court. The other one is a mediator. She figures she's seen judges, and she can do what they can do. Why go to law school when you can watch Law and Order and go from there? There's going to be a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to require that judges be lawyers, but the two candidates are unconcerned: if they've already been elected, they figure, they'll be in.
And they're missing out on some serious races. There's a serious challenger in the Baltimore City State's Attorney race: on the table is a massive shift away from prevention and early intervention efforts and towards actually putting criminals in jail.
I am not hugely educated about local politics. But I know the names of my state senator and two out of three of my representatives in the house of delegates. I've even met some of them. And I try to keep up with the races where things are actually happening. And I voted. And I didn't smack those annoying idiots on the light rail, even though I wanted to. Doing my part to make Baltimore a better place to live.
In Maryland, and especially in Baltimore, the Democratic primary election is usually more relevant than the general election. For example, the most serious Republican contender in my Congressional district has raised a total of $600 so far. (No, that figure is not missing a K at the end.)
Last week I was trapped on the light rail next to two agonizingly smug hipsters who had mistaken cynicism for maturity. They spent the entire trip from University Station to Centre Street sneering about how ridiculous it was to think that anyone cared about local politics. Who's ever heard of these guys? Why would anyone care who runs for state office? What do they even do - allocate money that Maryland doesn't even have? Didn't they know that no one cared? Like, they could get elected if their mom's bridge club voted for them. ...I swear it was all I could do to keep from beating them about the head and shoulders. Ignorance does not become any cooler if you give it a facade of world-weary cynicism, guys. If you're going to be that smug about being dumb, please keep it to yourselves and don't make me suffer through it.
They're missing out on some fun local races. For example: two of the people running for Orphans Court judge in Baltimore aren't even lawyers. They don't feel that this is any kind of a problem. The main reason one of them is running is that she's unhappy with how a judgment she was involved in was ruled on by the court. The other one is a mediator. She figures she's seen judges, and she can do what they can do. Why go to law school when you can watch Law and Order and go from there? There's going to be a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to require that judges be lawyers, but the two candidates are unconcerned: if they've already been elected, they figure, they'll be in.
And they're missing out on some serious races. There's a serious challenger in the Baltimore City State's Attorney race: on the table is a massive shift away from prevention and early intervention efforts and towards actually putting criminals in jail.
I am not hugely educated about local politics. But I know the names of my state senator and two out of three of my representatives in the house of delegates. I've even met some of them. And I try to keep up with the races where things are actually happening. And I voted. And I didn't smack those annoying idiots on the light rail, even though I wanted to. Doing my part to make Baltimore a better place to live.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 04:13 pm (UTC)I get really annoyed at people who do not vote in Presidential elections because they do not like the candidates. I keep wanting to shout at them -- don't you realize that in many ways the lower races have as much or more of an impact on how you live your life?
In California, at least, the initiatives are a reason in and of themselves to vote. Serious things -- both bad and good -- come out of that process, with really long-lasting impacts: Prop 13 was passed in 1978, and has done significant harm to the state that we are still feeling the effects of.
As far as all politics being local -- when I grew up in Florida, the only races that mattered were Republican primaries. I registered Republican to try and vote out the entire county school board who were, as far as I was concerned, a bunch of clowns. I re-registered as Democratic in college.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 03:03 am (UTC)Aye: if you really can't stand either candidate, vote for a third-party candidate as a protest vote. If you do, they can see "this person cared enough to vote but didn't like either duopoly candidate"; if you don't vote at all, they interpret it as "this person doesn't give a damn and their opinion can be safely ignored." (I'd like to put off the whole "does voting third-party count as throwing your vote away" argument until later, but will point out that regardless of how one feels about that, it can't be any more "throwing it away" than neglecting to cast a ballot at all.)
I really don't want to register as a Democrat, because despite voting for a lot of Democratic candidates, I don't see the party as really being close enough to my views and priorities to count myself as one. (I think I'm a lot closer to Green, but I haven't registered as that either, yet.) OTOH, given the importance of Democratic primaries here, maybe I should follow your example and do so just to have a voice at the primary stage.