Voter apathy

By Olivia Biagi
Collegian Staff
November 15, 2006

No matter how hard my mother tries, no matter how many times she reminds me of my civic duty, I refuse to register to vote. Indeed, it may be my duty to vote, but isn’t it also the duty of the politicians to put the well-being of the American people first? Isn’t it their moral and ethical obligation to run honest and clean campaigns? If the men and women I must choose amongst to vote for can’t perform their duties, why should I perform mine?

Politicians are nothing but paid liars. I’m not talking about just one or two people; I’m talking about them all. It is sickening to see our nation’s leaders—educated men and women—behaving like five-year-olds: “he did this” and “she said that” and so on. Not a single one of them can take responsibility for a mistake; it’s always someone else’s fault. Or, because of the actions of one person, an entire political party is to blame. Not to mention not one of them runs a campaign declaring exactly what the candidate stands for and exactly what he or she plans to do if elected. Instead, we are inundated with smear campaigns.

The worst case of mudslinging in this past election was between Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-6th), and his opponent Lois Murphy. According to www.freerepublic.com, WPVI Channel 6, ABC’s Philadelphia affiliate, pulled a campaign ad in October by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for flat out lying about Gerlach. The ad accused him of voting for a pay raise for himself and voting against sending American troops in Iraq body armor. Also in October, www.democracyforberks.com reported that a National Republican Congressional Committee ad was pulled by Comcast for similar reasons.

If, rather than trying to make his or her opponent look bad, any politician would inform me of exactly what policies he or she stood for and what he or she would do if elected, I would vote. I could not possibly vote in this election when Democrats only informed me that “we need a change” and not how they’re going to make a change. I could not vote when Republicans were trying to distract my attention from important matters. In all of the campaign ads I viewed these past two months, not one informed me of anything substantial, relevant or important to the election.

As of right now, Americans are choosing between the lesser of two evils in every election. I refuse to support a candidate that I do not have at least 85 percent faith in to do a good job and to make decisions based on the well-being of Americans (I think that 100 percent faith is completely unrealistic in American politics). In this election, I had zero faith in any and all candidates. Maybe if politicians were straightforward, if they ran clean campaigns, if they explained clearly what they wanted to do for our country and for the American people, I would register to vote. However, we do not live in a time where honesty and integrity are rewarded; instead, it’s ruthlessness that is rewarded. And as long as that continues, I will not vote.

biagio1@lasalle.edu