Yep.
4 11 2004“Because if some old lady in Kansas can get out of her house to vote out of
some nebulous fear about gays taking over the country, a college student ought
to be able to put down the PS2 controller and vote out of very real concerns
about the world he or she will enter after graduation.” -C.T.
I agree. I have to wonder if the “youth vote” will ever materialize, though–it
seemed before Nov. 2 that they were going to get out in droves and vote for
Kerry, or at least that’s what my friends on the other side of the aisle told me.
Evidently they didn’t show up any more than usual, and enough of them didn’t
vote for Kerry to make a difference. At least not a difference that mattered.
I just hope that all the ones that hooted and hollered and shouted their hatred
of Bush actually did vote. ‘Cause if they didn’t, then I’d have a
legitimate reason to tell them to shut the hell up.
At the same time, though, and it was mainly brought to my attention by a gay
activist, there are a lot of other social “moral” issues at stake here, also–a
lot of evangelical Christians and conservatives went out to vote against gay
marriage, but they also had concerns with things like late-term abortion, etc.
This particular gay activist said that while it certainly had an impact, among
social issues the gay marriage question alone shouldn’t be used as a scapegoat
for Kerry’s loss/Bush’s win. Even though measures directly questioning those
other issues weren’t on the ballot, a lot of people probably showed up just to
vote for Bush because he agreed with them on those issues.
I can’t help but wonder if those numbers reflect absentee ballots as well.
Granted, not as many youth are voting as should be, but if those numbers only
reflect the people that show up at the polls, there could be a difference that
was not shown.