Generally speaking a column that has a title such as this one, one would expect it to deal with sports. And usually it does, just not this time. Today, I want to talk about something much more controversial, something much more provocative, something that really gets people’s attention. Today this is about politics.
With election season just past, I took it up on myself to figure out, to the best of my ability which some of you believe to be not that great, why people actually vote the way they do.
I decided to stay with local politics because of our reading habits. Unofficially in my poll, I found that there are a lot of us that consider the Emery Progress to be our official source of late breaking news and do not peruse a bigger newspaper with any regularity. With this in mind, I figured that questions concerning state or national issues and/or people would maybe not work.
So why do we vote for whom we vote for? That is almost like the woodchuck question isn’t it? I was going to say “ain’t” it but I figured isn’t would make me sound more educated.
So the question is why? When you step up to vote and the decision has to be made, what actually drives us? Here are several scenarios that I believe fit a lot of us.
Meet the candidate night is a good place to well, meet the candidate. This is the time that you can get up close and personal and really see if their views sort of fit our views. This is a time that you can get through the fluff and get to substance. This is a time that you can decide the person might be good or that they are a bum. You know like throw the bum out.
But unfortunately we do not attend meet the candidate night and therefore all the candidates do is talk to themselves. No wonder they all might be confused. So if meeting those who choose to run is not important then what is? Upon what do we base our decision for whom to vote? Here are a few of the responses that I got.
Relations, something like my relations are better than your relations even if I really wouldn’t invite my relation to a backyard barbeque.
Residence, that guy is really good but he lives in Moore or Emery or Clawson and I live in Huntington. He just will not understand my needs and wants. I have got to vote for the local guy(or gal).
Business owners need to be careful. It is almost a taboo to appear to be successful at whatever it is that you do because as a business owner, we all know that you are rich and rich might not be good either.
Religion should not be an issue but unfortunately that appears not to be the case. I just have not figured out if you need to be more religious or less religious.
And now why do we really make these decisions? I came to no conclusions so I cannot really say. Maybe next year I will have a better answer but not now. If you know why, let me know.
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