I tried to find a good reason to vote, but I couldn't, and then I went and voted anyway, because I always do, and that's not a good reason at all.
I went and voted, and no one else did, and then they wrote stories in the papers about low voter turnout, but I think they need to write more stories about low candidate turnout, because no one runs.
You'd think in our blindly patriotic post-Sept. 11 America, every flag waver in the country would launch a campaign for office, and every one of his brothers would be out doing his most civic duty of voting, but it's not that way.
Chuck Erickson was the only candidate in my district to run for a seat on the Dane County Board this week, and I was one of his only supporters. I was also one of the most unpatriotic people in America back on Sept. 12.
Actually, Chuck Erickson probably wasn't too patriotic on Sept. 12 either, but I didn't know him back then. Really, I didn't even know who he was until last Sunday when I went online to double-check that I lived in Ech Vedder's county board district.
Last Sunday I went online and learned that I live two blocks out of Ech's district, and 10 minutes later I was on the phone with
Chuck Erickson.
It was four in the afternoon on Easter Sunday, and Chuck took the time to talk to me, and he was polite and may have even been sincere, but I didn't try to sum him up. I just wanted to figure out who he was, and he told me, and then I told him I didn't plan on voting in the election.
I called Chuck, hoping he'd be a totally misguided poli-sci major, who knew nothing about the county board, but he wasn't. He wasn't even a student. He was a member of the Vilas Neighborhood Association, and that made me think maybe I should vote.
Students don't belong to neighborhood associations, and they don't run in unopposed County Board elections. Students only run in the dirtiest, most unnecessarily publicized of elections, and students make me think that maybe I shouldn't vote.
Students spend thousands of dollars on signs, and they hold pizza parties and give out free beer to minors, and then they end up lying about the district they live in and have to hire lawyers after it's all over.
For laughs, I wanted one last dirty student election before I graduated. I wanted an all-American patriotic election filled with tears and mudslinging, but I got Chuck instead.
Instead of the sort of insincere students who have turned me off of politics, I got a candidate who hardly even campaigned. And in the end maybe this was best.
Living in Madison has made distrust even the best politicians and become alienated by the entire electoral and political system. It has made me think everything's a joke, and Chuck's election was a joke, but it was a joke I could swallow.
It was a joke that my vote contributed to, and maybe I'm patriotic for it. And maybe if 100 people in my district ran for county board, Chuck would still be the best one, or maybe a flag-waver would have won, but I don't know.
andrewmiller@students.wisc.edu
