Got up, brewed coffee and walked down the block to my polling place. Maybe 15 people in line. The ballot was long: four pages with all the propositions and judges. Allegedly the longest in the nation this year. But we get sample ballots and voter guides from various official and unofficial groups so there was no reason not to come in with all the “answers.” My snapshot observation was that a number of the people at my polling place had their preferences marked on a sample ballot or jotted down.
On the one hand, long ballots would seem to overwhelm and present a demand for judgment on matters which most of us know nothing about, and about which there is very little information to be found. How, exactly, am I supposed to judge which judge to retain and which not? On the other hand, if someone was to call themselves to the voters’ attention with especially politically offensive conduct/ decisions, then citizens have the opportunity to correct the perceived offense. So long as people feel indifferent or satisfied, the lists of obscure officials can be approved prefunctorilly or passed over entirely, the name on the list serving just as a safety valve for severe displeasure with a supposedly non-political official who calls themselves to the public’s attention.
Regarding officials and displeasure, I just do not understand how the head of the GOTV effort for the Republican Party helps his boss avoid impeachment by going on the air the day before an election, where he needs every R and a lot of I’s to come out for his slate, to call the base “restrictionists.” He did so on Hugh Hewitt’s program and Hugh did not challenge him. Laura Ingraham did pick up on it and was hot on the topic of operatives who had failed to produce results and even insulted the base for the past two years now trying so say it is the base’s fault in advance of the election results. Here is the quote in context:
HH: Now Karl Rove, you’ve got the Hispanic vote out there. The President’s done very well with it. It’s been absolutely essential to keep reminding the Hispanic voting community that it’s a great program that the President’s put forward in terms of legalization and a border security. Has that affected, though…the debate that’s been going on has often been not civil, despite the President’s attempt to keep it so. Has that affected Hispanic turnout, or Hispanic voting?
KR: I don’t know about a Hispanic turnout. I do think that individual Republican candidates are going to look back after this election and find that the rhetoric that they adopted hurt them in the Hispanic community. And we’re going to find other candidates who are going to look back and find that the rhetoric that they adopted by emphasizing a comprehensive solution to our border problems won them support in the Hispanic community. So I think there’s going to be…again, this race is going to be largely dominated by choices between two individual candidates running for the same office, and less by national issues. Now national issues will intrude, but they will intrude in the frame of a choice between the two individual candidates. And in that instance, I think immigration will be seen as…a comprehensive approach will be seen as a winner, and a narrow restrictionist approach will be seen as a loser.
Clumsy to adopt a negative label and even clumsier to do so the day before an election where you want the base to overlook the snubs and offenses of the past.
