Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Democracy in Action

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Fool that I am, I thought I’d beat the crowd to the polls this morning. I showed up at the Tuckahoe precinct voting station in Henrico County around 6 a.m. only to be greeted by a long line snaking out of the building and into the parking lot. I guess a few other people were thinking the same way. Fortunately, the voting proceeded fairly quickly, thanks to the addition of extra voting machines and voting officials. I was out of there 50 minutes later.

Tuckahoe is an affluent, overwhelmingly white precinct. It tilts Republican, but there are plenty of Democrats here. Everyone was exceedingly courteous and well behaved — not like those uncivilized heathen south of the James! (Read Peter’s previous post for accounts of rudeness and incivility in Chesterfield. Note to Peter: You really should move to Henrico. You’d feel less estranged here.)
I am quite certain that I will be less than thrilled by the electoral outcome today. But it feels good to be an American. It’s reassuring to see my fellow citizens muster so much interest in a national election. Apathy is no longer in vogue. People are re-engaged. And that’s a good thing.

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12 responses to “Democracy in Action”

  1. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    don’t want to double post but only to say that I too ran into unaccustomed long lines at 6 a.m., and a fella I know manning a table out front confirmed my impression that this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest turnout in recent memory.

    I live in a relatively rural area on the edge of two decades of suburban growth due mainly to NoVa commuters.

    In other words, many of the folks who vote at my precinct have lived in the county for many years and we had a huge turnout…. and every election prior .. we’ve been a “red” precinct but I saw many folks who are more than likely blue voters…

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Yo, Bacon,
    I followed your advice and tried to vote at 6 a.m. I decided to come back later — couldn’t handle the lines.
    Thank you for your kind invitation to move to Henrico. Here in Chesterfield, I detect a difference been old C-Fielders and new ones. The old ones remind me of typically, friendly, Southern, etc., just like Beaufort County, N.C., where people go out of their way to be nice to you. The new ones are nouveau riche and have an attitude that “I’ve got mine now, so get outta my way.” Honestly, I detect a bit of that in Henrico, too. Lots of Botoxed Blondes driving periwinkle blue Mercedes. But wait! Don’t you have a periwinkle blue Mercedes. Sorry!
    The xenophobia I described seems to be the locus of Richmond and not the burbs.

    Peter G.

  3. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    I am out in San Francisco today. Not a lot of McCain / Palin signes here!

    Sounds like a lot of Democratic momentum from early reports (on this blog). Any chance it will carry over to the statehouse? Maybe a Governor Moran or a Governor McAulliffe? Could this be a 10 year hiatus for Republicans overall?

    Oh those NoVA liberals. Woe is us. No botox blondes in periwinkle Mercedes here. No sir. That’s henna, plastic surgery and it’s a pearl mist olive Bently.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Just as the Republicans did previously, the newly elected Democrats will grossly overreach and, thus, sow the seeds for future defeats. It’s the way the American system works.

    Obama has called for an effort to drive the coal industry into bankruptcy. What happens if the cost of operating power plants increases by 50%? Even loonies such as the WaPo’s editorial staff must recognize that this would be insane.

    Tax increases will hurt big and small businesses. The American economy is competitive with those overseas. Tax increases when coupled with more wasteful spending will not advantage the economy. Pork will move from defense to other areas. To fund more giveaways, tax increases will hit the middle class too.

    Obama is not Doug Wilder or Mark Warner. While smooth as silk, he is a radical and totally without experience. Couple this with what seems like a big win, and the result is overreaching.

    As I predicted earlier, Jim Webb will jump ship within three years. More lunacy, just in the other direction. Neither political party is smart enough to understand this.

    We need a political party that is economically conservative and largely agnostic on social issues, IMO. We need a rule that bars higher level (SES) and congressional staff from lobbying for five years after they leave government service. I won’t hold my breath.

    TMT

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    TMT,
    I have to admit that I agree with some of what you say. The Dems will get complacent. In fact, the times when we get creative work out of Congress say circa mid 1990s is when you have a real competition for votes and ideas.

    PG.

  6. The "Left Coast" Jim Bacon Avatar
    The "Left Coast" Jim Bacon

    Jim Bacon here… the “Left Coast”, California edition. I live in a Republican leaning small town within a Democratic leaning county and state. In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that more times than not I vote Democratic… although I gave a nod to the “Governator.”

    I think the pollsters have underestimated the “Bradley Effect”. I believe that somewhere between 2 and 8 percent of Obama’s support will mysteriously evaporate in the privacy of a voting booth. I hope that I’m wrong, but I’ve spoken to some traditionally “blue” voters who have stunned me with comments like, “I’m not sure about voting for a brother”. That being said, the massive amount of newly registered “donkeys” may be enough to overcome the silent vote killer.

    I suspect it will all come down to the youth vote… will they show up? Already this morning I’ve heard reports of students having problems voting in both Virginia and Pennsylvania… what a surprise that it would be those two states.

    Also, I’ve heard little discussion of what states have anti-gay marriage, pro-gun and other such Republican base energizing ballot initiatives this election cycle. That’s one of “King Karl’s” favorite get out the vote techniques.

    Still, it’s been an exciting and inspiring election this time around… what the hell am I going to do tomorrow?

  7. Brady Avatar
    Brady

    I used to love politics. I was a Journalism major and wanted to be a Political Science minor until budgetary problems at my small liberal arts college had political science eliminated as a minor. My parents never talked about politics with me when I was growing up because they wanted me to form my own opinions. I was a college student, my opinions were formed, and I was going to write about them and discuss them in an intellectual forum! But come November 2, 2004, I decided politics was not for me anymore.

    I loved that with the combination of my Journalism and Poly Sci classes I was reading the paper everyday and was the most informed I had ever (and most likely will ever be) been in my life. But that had to stop. My reasoning was, why care about this and discuss it and argue about it when there is no hope? George W. Bush got RE-ELECTED. I’m sorry, that’s a political system that I do not care to take part in. Once was hard enough to stomach… but voted as president twice? Seriously?

    Not only was he re-elected on that fateful night, but where was I when it was happening? The night everything I cared about disappeared in a sea of red states? This Democrat was at the Republican headquarters in Richmond, Virginia because for my Press & Politics class, all Republicans had to go to the Democrat’s headquarters and the Democrats to the Republican’s to write election articles.

    So I didn’t watch John Kerry lose the election — I watched George Bush win it. Among a throng of happiness and joy was how I saw everything I believed was right come crashing down. I felt like most people I knew hated George Bush, how was it possible I lived in a country where the majority didn’t agree?

    So I cut off all ties to politics. I didn’t follow it at all. I didn’t watch the news and I didn’t read the news. I purposefully made myself as uninformed as humanly possible to protect myself from the depression of seeing the country go to shit. The war, the economy. I didn’t care. Keith Olbermann could continue reciting how many days it has been since George Bush declared mission accomplished. I used to think it was funny. Now I just think it’s depressing.

    Ignorance is bliss. I wasn’t strong enough to fight a losing battle, so I quit. I became a shut-in in the world of politics- there’s a whole universe of politics out there and I stayed locked inside my ignorant cave.

    I started to become more vocal about this in 2008. Before this year, people weren’t really talking about politics other than what George Bush was doing wrong. I can deal with those conversations. I have no input since I don’t follow the news, but I can tolerate being around them. When the Presidential nominees started to emerge I started to get a little hostile.

    One night I was out to dinner with my roommate and her mother, a Cuban immigrant, I told them that I wasn’t going to vote this year. “Why?” they asked. “Because I have no faith in this country or the government,” was my response. “This is the greatest country in the world,” was her response. And this isn’t from a fresh-off-the-boat Cuban. Although she found a far superior life in America and would definitely get a tax break under McCain, I really don’t see America as the land of opportunity. Yeah, in comparison to Fidel Castro, most non-third-world countries are going to look pretty good.

    On Mother’s Day this year we had a luncheon at my parents’ house in Connecticut. It was a big family and friends affair with upwards of 15 people at the table. Somehow the conversation grew political, and I told everyone (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends) I was not going to vote this year. My mom immediately became upset. I told them how I don’t believe in the political system anymore and that if George Bush was re-elected in 2004, why would I have any reason to believe Obama has any chance of winning? I told them all I thought McCain was going to win. “That’s scary,” my friend said. “I agree. We should all be very scared,” was my response.

    So after a prolonged internal struggle I decided over the summer that I would place my vote come November. The last thing I need to hear when McCain wins is that “every vote counts” (a phrase that holds ZERO weight ever since the 2000 election).

    On this Election Day I woke up with multiple text messages about the election (despite my vocal attempts at distancing myself from politics); One from my mom saying “Where will we move if McCain wins?” Um, probably the same place we moved when Georgie got re-electied – nowhere! This coming from a woman who voted for George Bush in 2000 (and when she told me about it years later, I cried.); A sarcastic text from a friend who is a lawyer (and democrat) in Norfolk, Virginia saying “I just voted for McCain, Tina Fey is so hot, she’s running right?”; And another text from my cynical future-movie-producer friend who lives in New York who apparently just realized what I have been saying all along, “What if Obama were to get spanked in the elections? That would really be something else.”

    I had to read a book of short stories in high school. One of the stories really got to me, it was called “The City of Broken Hearts”. It was all about how Boston is called “The City of Broken Hearts” because everyone puts all their faith into the Red Sox each year and each year the Red Sox lose. This was written in the 90’s, and as we all know, the curse has been broken. Curses (and rules?) were made to be broken. Julia Louis-Dreyfus eventually broke the Seinfeld curse and won an Emmy, so one can anticipate that Obama will prevail and break the Republican curse that has plagued out country for the past eight years, but until tonight, who is to say if it will actually happen or not?

    Even as I read headlines like “Pollster Calms Paranoid Dems: McCain Win Exceptionally Improbable” I can’t help but prepare for the worst and hope that I’m wrong. You can hope against hope, and dream against dream, that your candidate is going to win. But to my democratic friends, as much as I want Obama to win, if he doesn’t, all I can say is- told ya so.

  8. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Maybe my eyes are blurry.

    Did I just see that Obama beat McCain by a sizable percentage in … Henrico County?

    OMG. I guess it’s good to know that Fairfax has a sister county to the south.

    Given that … we’ve got a Chairman of the BoS you really ought to look at. If we can’t kick him into Congress we’d really like you guys in Henrico to consider “seeding” the new Democratic majority with Gerry Connolly. I’ll help him pack myself.

  9. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    I think it is likely that it took two things for Obama to win in Virginia.

    First, the urbanized “diverse” population areas – then the black vote.

    Check out this NYT map that allow you to see how each county in Va – voted.

    http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

    In my own county.. which has stayed RED.. it stayed RED again but by a much smaller percentage (is this “bluing”?) and the turnout was in the 70% range.

    I think the secret of the GOPs success has been that they have been traditionally much better at getting their constituency out to the polls – until this year when Obama put together a GOTV effort comparable to the Republicans.

    Ultimately, IMHO, this could spell the permanent doom of the Packyderms because their base in not enough to win – unless the other side does not get out it’ base – even if it wins the folks in the middle.

    Of course, the Dems… they’ll probably drift back to their old ways… especially if Obama screws up … and the new folks who turned out this year – go back to not showing up for future elections..

  10. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    let’s try this again:

    http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

    if this don’t work… just go to their front page and top right click on “county by country results”

  11. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    “Left Coast” Jim Bacon, I’m surprised to hear that there is a “Republican leaning” town in California. Do you still have woolly mammoths in California, too?

    From our perspective here in Virginia, it doesn’t look like there was much of a Bradley effect at all. That’s the one small morcel of comfort I can derive from this election. It’s good to know that a black man can be elected in this country (even if this particular individual shouldn’t be).

  12. Brady Avatar
    Brady

    I am definitely feeling better. But I am no fair-weather pessimist. Although my faith is on its way to being restored in America and/or the American people, I still have the same old issues with politics and politicians. If Obama proves to be a good leader and manages to somehow get us out of the mess we’re in then I will feel WAY better. I might even start following politics again!

    While talking with my mom today, she said some of her friends (people who would have benefited from McCain’s tax cuts and will soon be paying more under Obama) were voting for tax purposes. That really made me angry. The U.S. has some of the lowest taxes in comparison to other countries at our economic level. Everyone just needs to get over it.

    I’m young and I don’t have a nest egg to worry about yet. But it really bothers me how protective people are over their money and a lot of people need to realize that the only way to get out of an economic recession like this is going to be by paying more taxes. The government can’t spend money and start programs to ease this issue unless the citizens help out via taxes. Yes it is a shitty feeling to look at a paycheck and see the large amounts that get taken out for taxes, but we all have to think of it as helping the greater good (so long as the government spends the money we give them in a way that is beneficial and not corrupt).

    I know this isn’t how everyone feels, and that’s why there are Democrats and there are Republicans. It just really rubs me the wrong way when people claim to be socially liberal and economically conservative. You obviously can’t have it both ways, and I think a lot of people chose their money over their hearts, and I think that’s sad.

    But listening to Obama speak last night did give me hope. It’s nice that we now have a president that can actually speak in public and can be inspirational. His ease and charisma were refreshing. I know many people who cried, overcome with emotion, during his acceptance speech. That’s the kind of president we need at a time like this.

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