The day I turned 18, I headed to the local convenience store to purchase a pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket. I didn’t smoke, and the lottery ticket turned out to be a losing one, but it didn’t matter. If the clerk hadn’t asked to see my ID, I would have shown it anyway; that’s how proud I was of the milestone I had reached. (On a side note, you should have seen how giddy I was when my insurance rates dropped when I turned 25.)
With that said, you can imagine how excited I was when I got to vote in my first election: Clinton vs. Dole. Since I was in college in November of 1996, my absentee vote for Clinton (of course I voted for Clinton, he Rocked the Vote and Arsenio) went by way of the Pony Express. The borderline-irrational excitement I felt at being able to finally exercise my American right was rivaled only by the extraordinary near-suicidal disappointment that struck me a few months later when I received word from the State of New York that my absentee vote had not counted for a hanging-chad like technicality.
Our country has always had trouble courting the average American teenage voter. With so many votes cast in an election, it’s tough to convince the overwhelmed 18-year-old that his/her vote counts. And with that mindset as my foundation, after my vote (or lack thereof) in 1996, I gave up voting altogether. That is, until the Republican Party decided to back an idiot solely for his name.
***We break this irregularly scheduled blog entry to go off on one final (thankfully) anti-Bush tirade***
History will end up judging George W. Bush as one of, if not, the worst president in our history based on his determination to turn a terrorist attack on our country into a vengeful attack on an uninvolved country and make the rest of the world hate us even more, rather than use it as motivation to really protect our country from further attacks, but I could have told you how bad a president he was in the summer of 2001. People seem to forget that pre-9/11, W was on vacation 42% of the time. I don’t know about you, but if in my first year of a new job I spent 42% of my time on vacation, I would have been fired.
And one more thing: imagine what kind of shape our economy would have been in now if, instead of pumping trillions of dollars into a new democracy halfway around the world that will never survive simply because it was forced down its people’s throats, we spent the money on strengthening our border defense (seven years later and it’s just as easy to get into our country as it was when W’s father was president!). This country got out of a depression by employing its people to support a war; and it sure as hell could have stayed out of a recession by employing its people to build up and maintain our border protection.
***OK, back to the blog***
With the chip on my absentee ballot shoulder, and with the idiot Texan governor providing my inspiration, in 2000 I patiently waited in an overcrowded line with other inspired voters at a downtown-Burlington election site. Twenty minutes later, when I finally reached the front of the line, I was informed that I was in the wrong district and that I’d have to fill out an absentee ballot that would be delivered to my correct district after the election. Later that night, when my suspicions that my vote would never get counted took front seat in my thoughts, thousands of Florida voters went to bed unaware that they were about to feel the same way. At this point, two elections into my career as an American voter, I was fairly certain that I’d never wake up the day after Election Day feeling satisfied that my vote had made a difference. The unbelievable (in its stupidity) 2004 election results further emphasized my gut feeling.
And though the American voting process has kicked me in the aforementioned gut a number of times, I can’t help but feel excited. You see, in two days, I’ll be voting in the first presidential primary in my life that will make a difference. I’m not exaggerating. 1996 was Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign (not exactly a popular moment for primaries); 2000 was Al Gore’s campaign and his only serious competitor Bill Bradley never got out of the starting gate; and in 2004, my great Vermont state backed its son Howard Dean in the primary…weeks after he had dropped out of the race.
So here I am, ready for the new Super Tuesday, March 4, and after all that I’ve been through, you can imagine how bitter I am every time I read a news story that talks about Texas and Ohio. If I had a nickel for every time my state’s primary was described in these articles in one line as “Vermont is also voting” (if mentioned at all), I’d have the kind of financial backing the Clinton campaign sees only when Hilary loans it her own money. For all the time and energy spent covering our hillbilly neighbor’s primary, you’d think the media would have the courtesy to at least give us a headline or two. But since they won’t, I guess I’ll have to wait until November for my vote to count. Hopefully it will.
Benchly'sword 