Let me frame today's Election Results Show with this anecdotal evidence of how far to the left Ann Arbor really is:
On my way home from school today, walking past the daycare center, two little (preschool aged at most) girls standing at the fence were talking to people outside the fence. It turns out the were talking politics, which I discovered only because I heard one girl say to the other in the most snide voice a four year old can have "I bet he voted for DeVos."
I didn't make that story up, not even a little. So you can probably imagine the blue state euphoria sweeping campus today. All that glitters is not gold, however, as the University now faces a serious retooling in the face of Proposal 2's defeat. Students can sense a change in the works and this new direction has soured the mood of what might have otherwise been a jubilant day on campus.
It also occurred to me this morning that we vote on strange and obscure bits of government. Why a dove hunting season made the ballot but our (and by "our" I mean "our President's") weak dollar foreign trade policies are untouchable by the electorate. The semi-annual post-voting fog of voter disillusionment has hit me hard. Barring running and voting for myself, I'm not sure when I'd ever have the chance to change the course of human events. It's easy to understand lobbying when you consider the absolute minutia that the public controls. Obviously the nation can't be bothered to vote on everything or given the line-item veto to cut the expansion of agriculture inspections in Iowa, but if you need/want things accomplished where the heck else can you go?
Wednesday, November 08, 2006