One of the advantages of living way out on the very tip of one of those districts tortured by gerrymandering is that It’s not really possible for me to go politic my neighbors on election day. Not that it would help much anyway. In my predominantly Jewish neighborhood I’m surrounded on all sides by liberal Democrats. The best thing I could do for Anna Little is go nail all my neighbor’s doors shut. But thanks to gerrymandering, most of my neighbors are actually in Rush Holt’s district, and that spares me the guilt of minding my own business.
I’m not terribly well liked in my neighborhood anyway. My daughter hangs out with the girl next door who is close to her age, and anytime a child is in my house I make sure the parents know that there are guns here. I also let them know the safety procedures I have in place, and how caution is like a religion in my house. Usually they don’t care much about the presence of firearms, but appreciate being told. But when that bit of news got out into the broader neighborhood I became a pariah locally. Which to be frank, was fine with me.
But my point is that if I tried to convince anyone in my neighborhood to vote, given my local reputation, it might have the opposite effect. I have my ‘don’t tread on me’ flag on the front of my house so if the occasional tea party sympathizer drives by they might not feel quite so alone. And given the demographics, I think that’s about all I can do.
I will be voting today of course. But for the reasons mentioned above, I will not be driving people to the polls or going door to door to ‘get out the vote’. It’s the lazy man’s out I know, but I do also have a job, and markets are open today. It’s going to take some luck for Anna Little to pull it out, and I’m keeping hope alive. But I’ll be doing it from my office, and from my couch. And rather than obsessing over returns I’ll spend my time playing with my daughter, and remembering that in a perfect world politics isn’t supposed to be such a big part of our lives anyway.
I’m not going to claim I don’t care about this one… but I’m going to try not to worry too much about it. I am in NJ after all… and in the end politics in NJ is something done to its citizens, not for them. So I want to make sure I keep it in perspective.
3 comments:
A quick update - when the Mrs. and I got to our polling place there was only one person there (apart from the volunteers). She was leaving as we were walking in. This is common in an area where so many people are commuting for work.
Through the process of elimination we determined that her car was the one with the "Don't Tread On Me" bumper sticker. It was gone when we came out.
While we were there, two more people showed up to vote. They saw my car with the "Honk If I'm Paying Your Mortgage" bumper sticker when they pulled in the lot. And as we were pulling out another 'Don't Tread on Me' labeled car was pulling in.
In short, no one I saw voting is unaware of the anti-big government message.
Make of that what you will.
You are not alone as a red dot in the middle of a deep blue sea. I think I am one of 20 republicans in my entire precinct (an area with a very high population density). I once voted in the primary and the poll workers had to find the republican registration book. They weren't even used to having to open it during the primaries.
I drove by my polling station a couple hours ago. It was very quiet. I am very curious as to how many people actually voted by the time I get over there late this afternoon.
"... politics isn’t supposed to be such a big part of our lives anyway."
+1000
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