I decided not. That’s right, I didn’t vote today. I have one hour to change my mind, but I don’t think I will. I’ve been agonizing over what to do for about a week. I decided, and waffled, and decided again, not to vote. It seems so wrong to not vote. Unamerican. Unpatriotic. Like I wasn’t doing my civic duty. And yet, it was the right thing to do. I even ruined by flawless voting record of over a decade. But I just couldn’t vote today.
You see, I’m not a Democrat. I’m certainly not a Republican. I’m a Green. And in Wisconsin, the Greens didn’t have a primary today. We are voting in Wisconsin by mail. And there wasn’t anything else on the ballot. So, I’ll vote in the Green primary, by mail, when my ballot comes. It just didn’t seem fair to vote in both the Democratic and the Green Party primaries. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t make up my mind about which Democrat I would want to vote for. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear, I couldn’t get excited about voting for either of them, because . . . well, they are Democrats. And while either would be better than Bush, I wasn’t excited about what either of them have to say. As I noted in an earlier blog, Edwards said the things I wanted to hear, and I probably would have voted for him had I voted in the Democratic primary. . . but that just got me back to . . . why would I vote then? I got lots of suggestions from people urging me to vote and justifying why I should, but nothing convinced me. Why should I tell Democratic Party delegates how to vote? I shouldn’t. So, as crazy as it sounds, especially for a local politician, I can proudly say . . . I didn’t vote today.
