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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

People Who Do Not Bother To Vote

Today is Election Day. Get out and vote, people. Or, in the words of the great poet and humorist Ogden Nash (1932):
Election Day Is a Holiday

People on whom I do not bother to dote
Are people who do not bother to vote
Heaven forbid that they should ever be exempt
From contumely, obloquy, and various kinds of contempt.

Some of them like Toscanini and some like Rudy Vallée
But all of them take about as much interest in their right to ballot
as their right to ballet.
They haven’t voted since the heyday of Miss Russell (Lillian)
And excuse themselves by saying What’s the difference of one vote in fifty million?

They have such refined and delicate palates
That they can discover no one worthy of their ballots,
And then when someone terrible gets elected
They say There, that’s just what I expected!

And they go around for four years spouting discontented
criticisms
And contented witticisms,
And then when somebody to oppose the man they oppose gets
nominated
They say Oh golly, golly, he’s the kind of man I’ve always
abominated
And they have discovered that if you don’t take time out to go to the polls
You can manage very nicely to get through thirty-six holes.

Oh let us cover these clever people very conspicuously with loathing,
For they are un-citizens in citizens’ clothing.
They attempt to justify their negligence
On the ground that no candidate appeals to people of their intelligence,
But I am quite sure that if Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) ran against Thomas Jefferson (Dem.),
Neither man would be appealing enough to squeeze a vote out of them.

Vote GOP, vote Dem, vote early, vote late. Just vote.

9 Comments:

Blogger Ezzie said...

Planning on it. Nu, so who's everyone voting for? The only one I'm sure about as of now is Bloomberg (and I'm a registered Democrat!). Anyone have suggestions in the other races? I lean conservative...

3:22 AM  
Blogger Chaim said...

OrthoMom, very true. I always tell people that it's a crime if we don't vote. The freedoms awarded to us in this country are so huge that the least we could do is take part in the democratic (or republican) process.

Ezzie, I'm voting for Bloomberg too, I think it may be a historic blowout.

7:36 AM  
Blogger YMedad said...

the Daley phrase was "vote early and vote often", see
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/classes/hmc.cs070.200401/votequote.html

8:07 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

"I lean conservative..."

Ezzie, I would never have guessed.

9:43 AM  
Blogger Mar Gavriel said...

OK, I voted for Bloomberg.

He's shown himself to be a mensch. And he's not a real Republican.

And I don't know anything about Ferrer, except that people say that he's a hack.

I'm still a Democrat.

2:37 PM  
Blogger orthomom said...

OK, I voted for Bloomberg.

He's shown himself to be a mensch. And he's not a real Republican.

And I don't know anything about Ferrer, except that people say that he's a hack.

I'm still a Democrat.


That's OK, Bloomberg's still a Democrat too.

3:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why vote? The probability of your vote deciding anything is very small. In a close election-Florida 2000-the courts will just annoint who they like anyway. GWB won one election in 2000-5-4 voting for GWB-Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy. andO'connor.

5:42 PM  
Blogger Ezzie said...

MyCroft - :::sigh:::

Orthomom - Ha! Great line I saw a few times... "Guiliani and Bloomberg don't pass for Republicans west of 9th Ave."

Krum - Heh. What gave it away? My OpJournal piece? ;)

6:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

'I don't know anything about Ferrer, except that people say that he's a hack.'

He was always very good to the Jewish community in the Bronx, even after the community dwindled down to the point that he would never need Jewish votes. And he wasn't corrupt (unlike too many Bronx politicians). And he might actually be a bit more conservative on social and fiscal issues than Bloomberg. Not that it matters.

12:07 AM  

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