Today we vote on mayor and three city council members. On the whole, it is a situation of having to vote for the best of three evils, at least mayor. There are five people running for the position. Two of them have a snowball’s chance in hell of making the run-off, and the other three? None of them give me gleeful butterflies in my stomach when I think about them being the mayor of my city. Still, have to vote for someone or the other 10% of people bothering to vote in this election will vote in the worst of the three evils. Then there are the city council positions, and only one of them is an incumbent (who I know little about). In fact, I know just about nothing about any of the people running for city council (or mayor, except the career politicians). No idea who to vote for.
Finding out anything about the people who haven’t been in the local political scene for a while has been damn well near impossible. They have all been complaining about not being able to raise enough money to reach out to the people of Austin, and by that they must mean TV commercials. I haven’t heard about any of them having rallies or public speeches or meetings, almost none of them have web sites, and the ones who do don’t offer much information, and most of them have barely been interviewed by local news sources. All three of these things are rather low-cost, at least cheaper than TV commercials, and can really make a difference when we are talking about voter turnouts of only 10% of the city’s population. Hell, a few hundred votes could make the difference between winning and losing, so even pounding the pavement and going door-to-door to get out the vote could have won one of them a place on the city council. If any of them went door-knocking, they didn’t do it in my neighborhood†.
So today we go vote on the elected officials most likely to truly either improve or screw up our lives, and I have no real idea what most of these people stand for or what they plan to do in office. Is it any wonder most people don’t bother voting in the city election? I’m even considering skipping it. Why bother voting when I either don’t know the people running or know them and hate them? If I –a politically aware and involved citizen– don’t give a damn about going to vote, imagine how apathetic an average city resident must be about it all.
Fact is … doesn’t matter who wins, the city council and mayor will suck, I will continue to not feel at all represented by my elected officials, and Austin will continue to become more like Dallas or Houston. Maybe we’ll just go to the movies instead.
Though I do want to vote for mayor, because there is one person I most definitely don’t want in office at all.
Footnotes- † Of course, why would any of them bother trying to get people to vote in my urban, nearly downtown neighborhood? The whole lot of them have always been far more interested in making the downtown condo dwellers and West Austin lake-dwellers happy. Our city council has historically sucked for a long time. We need single member districts NOW so everyone can feel they are represented! [↩]
Go see either Wolverine or Star Trek (although I would highly recommend Star Trek). I did the early voting thing here in San Antonio and hadn’t made up my mind on the city council race for my district until I got there. Both of the candidates were at my voting place so I spent about half an hour talking to them before voting. As for the mayor race… well, I’m not impressed that any of them can do a better job than our current mayor. Considering our current mayor is simply a figure head who desperately tries to foster a sense of popularity rather than action, I’m not holding out much hope for here.
Back to the movies… You will not be a better person for seeing either movie. Both are fun. Both are a hoot. Both are action packed with some pretty spectacular CGI. Both movies keep their moral barometers buried. Star Trek is a revision of the classic television show. It brought a new layer to the characters (especially Kirk) which has been tried before (and failed miserably example Phantom Menace). Although Wolverine does have a naked Hugh Jackman running through the forest which is reason enough to go and see it. With that being said, I doubt that Lin will enjoy that aspect as much as you or I. I don’t think you will be disappointed in either flick if you go in with the whole escapism mindset.
How convenient I read your comment about the two movies we are discussing, just as we are discussing which of them to go see. I, of course, want to see a naked Hugh Jackman, he, I believe, really wants to see Star Trek. So, the negotiations go on!
I pretty much figured either would do for a little escapism, so long as I turn off those parts of my mind that know too much about the X-Men and Star Trek and just enjoy stuff blowing up. :D
And I guess we’ll vote on our way there. Not like there’s going to be a line or anything.