Damn the torpedoes, just go ahead and vote
The Last Election List
By GAIL COLLINS, NYT
O.K., people, we’ve got an election coming. Tuesday’s the day! So little time, so much to do before we go to the polls. Perhaps we should make a list:
1) Complain about the Electoral College.
If you live in places like New York or California or Texas, feel free to spend some time in a dark corner, contemplating the way you’re taken for granted. So what if you’ve got a strong political majority for one party. You’re still Americans! But your state has already been colored red or blue on all the Election Central maps. Nobody wants to take your political temperature. Nobody cares what your waitress moms are thinking.
For months now, we’ve been listening to people from Ohio moan about how many political ads they’re seeing on TV. Ohio, some of us have never gotten a single ad! How many celebrities do you think have parachuted into Rhode Island to do fund-raising for Barack Obama? How many network camera crews are on their way to take the pulse of Alabama? You’re beginning to sound like people who complain about how tough it is to manage three vacation homes.
2) Consider the bright side of the Electoral College.
If your state has no swing-like characteristics, there’s no danger that you’ll be humiliated before the global media when it screws up the vote count. New Yorkers, every time you get sullen about the fact that your state doesn’t matter, try to imagine what would happen if the entire future of the presidency depended on getting absolutely precise numbers out of Brooklyn.
(More here.)
O.K., people, we’ve got an election coming. Tuesday’s the day! So little time, so much to do before we go to the polls. Perhaps we should make a list:
1) Complain about the Electoral College.
If you live in places like New York or California or Texas, feel free to spend some time in a dark corner, contemplating the way you’re taken for granted. So what if you’ve got a strong political majority for one party. You’re still Americans! But your state has already been colored red or blue on all the Election Central maps. Nobody wants to take your political temperature. Nobody cares what your waitress moms are thinking.
For months now, we’ve been listening to people from Ohio moan about how many political ads they’re seeing on TV. Ohio, some of us have never gotten a single ad! How many celebrities do you think have parachuted into Rhode Island to do fund-raising for Barack Obama? How many network camera crews are on their way to take the pulse of Alabama? You’re beginning to sound like people who complain about how tough it is to manage three vacation homes.
2) Consider the bright side of the Electoral College.
If your state has no swing-like characteristics, there’s no danger that you’ll be humiliated before the global media when it screws up the vote count. New Yorkers, every time you get sullen about the fact that your state doesn’t matter, try to imagine what would happen if the entire future of the presidency depended on getting absolutely precise numbers out of Brooklyn.
(More here.)
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