Last night I got into a discussion

[ikojo]

with a friend. We went on a scooter ride and then out to dinner.

While eating we got onto politics and voting. My friend admitted that she has not voted in approx eight years or so. She said the nail in the coffin was when Bill Clinton said on television that he did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. She said that she didn't feel he was lying to all of America but felt he was lying to her PERSONALLY. That when he looked into the camera it was as if he was lying to HER.

She also said that she didn't see a dimes worth of difference between the two parties, so why vote.

I suspect she is not alone in these feelings, considering that almost 50% of eligible voters don't bother to vote.

This is the population the Dems and especially those to the left of the corporatists need to reach. How to reach them, though?

[Hugin]

1. I don't tend to put the Lewinsky thing and the lairs who started a war in

the same category.

Especially, since the whole Lewinsky affair was designed to bring
down Clinton and latched on to by the Right Wingers after a $70,000,000.00
witch hunt proved fruitless.

[tjwmason]

11. No offence intended

and I agree with you. But that's not how to win these people back.

If people believe that the whole political class is entirely self-serving and willing to lie at any point - saying "well we're not as bad as the other side" EVEN WHEN ONE IS RIGHT is merely going to contribute to their alienation from the political process.

[Hugin]

15. True...

But, the problem being described is due to the fact that
currently the messenger is almost wholly owned by the
right wing/corporatist here in the U.S. Take the Cheney/Facial Shotgun
Pat Kennedy/Car Accident dichotomy as an example.

The media (if they even mention Right Wing SNAFUs at all) tend to
treat the events as of equal importance. When they plainly aren't.

I can lead people to the Truth, but, I can't make them think. As long
as the status-quo of the Right Wing Noise Machine exists there's little
that can be done to awaken the hard of thinking.

Until it effects them personally... They are by definition, "Selfish" and
"Self-Absorbed". The high price of fuel and the fact the current Administration
is not only ambivalent about it, but, is encouraging it, will wake these
people up. Hopefully, there will be a strong Democratic message out there
for these people to move to... But, I don't see it currently. It's not because
there are no "Democratic Leaders". Instead it's due to the lack of a channel
for the messages to be saturated into the thoughts of the masses.

It's as the book says... If we're to win this time, we'll have to do it
without the media.

You may try saying... "What does Monica have to do with the price of gas?"
to try to nudge them onto a more realistic way of thinking.

BTW... Rarely do I take offense at controversy and criticism. :thumbsup:

[Jade Fox]

2. People like your friend....

are either looking for the perfect candidate or an excuse for being lazy, in my experience. I don't mean to put down your friend, who I obviously don't know, But people I do know who say similar things want an excuse to not have to educate themselves and vote.

[Orsino]

3. With this comic, perhaps.

http://www.idrewthis.org/2006/ideas.html

It does conveniently ignore Democratic complicity in recent GOP Epic Bad ideas, but surely your friend can see the difference it makes when the GOP wins permanent majorities. Turning that around, or at least mixing it up a bit, would certainly seem to be worth the trouble of getting out to vote.

[Evergreen Emerald]

4. I have a friend who also believes the two parties are the same.

She is a good person, conservative, but simply not paying attention. She believes in the Republic and shrugs off the current constant improper conduct of this administration as politics. This is how they are getting away with the outrageous amount of illegal behavior. She defines herself as conservative, and then follows the party without looking too closely. Anything that occurs she calls "just politics."

There are two types of people that are on the sidelines or still supporting the party: those that are not paying attention, or those with significant character flaws.

Your friend, like mine is just taking a superficial look at what is happening without realizing the significance of what their actions are doing to us.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. I understand what she is saying

I was disappointed in Clinton, but really thought it was overblown.

But I also see that both parties have problems with the same sort of behavior. Such is human nature.

At the moment, I think our side is at least ahead on the talking points. We might not actually reach our goals, but our goals are higher and better.

[skygazer]

6. How does she expect it to change if she DOESN'T vote?

That's how I always frame it.

Many of the people who vote and vote faithfully are people who have a vested interest in the outcome - people who profit financially from whatever candidate wins. When regular people don't bother to vote, that just gives a larger bloc of the voting power to those who have those narrow interests - and there are a lot of them.

Maybe one vote seems like a drop in the bucket but there have been races which were decided by a small number of votes. I want mine counted.

In addition, her attitude smacks of laziness. The candidates are not going to change unless people force them to. Democracy is not easy - it's something that requires work and diligence. We owe it to ourselves and our country to educate ourselves about the issues, dig into candidates backgrounds and voting records, see if they really follow the path they claim to, attend meetings, ask questions, demand answers.

My SO had never voted in his entire LIFE (he's 45) until the 2004 election. That speech above is what finally wore him down - he's now a committed Dem. :headbang:

[ikojo]

8. She said that she just accepts things as they

are and doesn't think any one person can change the world. When she asked me if I thought I could change things I said maybe not alone but I can help make things better.

I don't see her as lazy but more as feeling betrayed by the Dems. This is the party that championed NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT but yet their candidates don hard hats and Carhart jackets during election season while stabbing working people in our collective backs.

[tjwmason]

12. Best answer.

As with so many point in this macro-scale world - if we look at the contribution which we as a single person can make, then it's damn close to being nothing at all. But then if every one of these single individuals decided to make a stand, the change would be as dramatic as in a revolution.

[Radical Activist]

7. The Democratic party doesn't speak to most working class people.

With no other alternative, most working class people don't vote. That's a big sacrifice to make in order to chase after a few upper-middle class white soccer Moms in the suburbs.

[ikojo]

9. It's pretty sad when the same people standing in food

lines and getting food from food pantries vote for the party who doesn't care that they are in that situation. Not that the Dems care all that much for poor and working class people but they did at one time and I hold out hope that history can be reclaimed.

I heard on the Majority Report that the three poorest counties in Ohio voted for Bush! Why is that? Primarily I think it was the god, guns and gays platform the pugs run on. That appeals to the inate social conseervatism of many working class people.

[Hugin]

17. Not to mention the Right Wingers own the voting machines...

So, there we have a problem.

[Radical Activist]

19. That's amazing

about the poorest counties in Ohio. I've said before that Kerry would have won Ohio if he had made loss of jobs due to bad trade agreements a top issue of the campaign. It might have given those poor voters a better reason to vote for him than the social issues.

[Book Lover]

10. Well, since no one other than Bill's wife was *entitled* to the truth in

the matter, she in fact was not lied to *personally*. And while she may have a point in terms of the lack of difference between the parties on a national level, at the state and municipal level, it's a different story. Maybe start working on her with your local and state elections?

[ikojo]

14. That's what got the conversation started...I saw a Jeff Smith

sign. He ran for congress in 2004 against Russ Carnahan in the Dem primary. He lost by very few votes. Russ won primarily on his name and from what I have been told by a former state rep, Russ was not a hard working state rep when he was in Jefferson City.

I told her Jeff Smith was a good guy and well deserving of our vote and support.

[Haole Girl]

13. Has your friend watched any tv lately?

Did you friend feel like she was being lied to by Bush when he said there were weapons of mass destruction, or when he said, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."? Does she really, truly, see no difference in the two major political parties?

I'm sorry, I have trouble believing this. Sorry. If people can't see a difference yet, well, as the bumper sticker says, "You're not paying attention!"

[Mutley]

16. I do know a lot of people who feel like the differences between the

parties are on the surface only and that underneath where it counts it boils down to the same greedy and incompetent behavior. Sometimes, a lot of times really, I tend to agree with them.

[Squeech]

18. Late to this thread

One thing I like to emphasize to non-voters is that voting is market research for the political class. When we pull the lever for candidate X, what we're saying is, we endorse this set of policies that candidate X has set forth in his advertising, and that we like the cut of his jib. And it's something we feel strongly enough about to take time out of our day and go to an inconvenient place and do something semi-pointless-- as opposed to just being home to answer the phone when Gallup calls.

So I never miss elections, as much for the referendum questions as for the office seekers. (Actually more so: I'm in Massachusetts, where the republican party is vestigial, and the real choices happen in the Democratic primaries. But the ballot questions are sometimes crucial.)

I was not a big fan of Bill Clinton-- he lost me when he sacrificed Joycelyn Elders to the wingnuts-- but it was obvious to me that the Monica story was something the Repukes promoted to bring him down, after he'd spent his whole first term trying to work with them in mostly good faith (except for the government shutdown). This made it obvious that the Repukes were anti-democratic (with the small d).

And something else occurs to me. In the Bible, King David had a zipper problem too-- the Bathsheba story makes that clear. But this didn't prevent Yahweh from supporting him at every other turn, and specifying that Meshiach would be his descendent. One thing I was told in sunday school was that the reason he was not allowed to build the temple in Jerusalem, and it was deferred to Solomon, was that his hands were stained with blood, even though the battles he fought were divinely ordained. War is inherently sinful, even if it's a war Jahweh agrees is necessary. Adultery, not so much. You can draw your own conclusions about relevance to the politics of the last 10 years.