Some excellent comments from Doc Searls’ sister:
The story has changed. It is not about the candidates anymore. That is just cursory coverage of their bus-embedded reporters, and equal-time sound bites. He said ying/he said yang.
The story now IS the election. The election process. Not only the dangers of chaos, early-voting, registration mess-ups, the stolen signs, the various scenarios of a challenge to the results, the legalities and the larcenies.
The real story is the engagement of the people. The passion to recall. The fear of change or the unknown. The push to get the youth out. The lack of the population’s ennui amidst their fatigue from the rancor.
The recognition that, whomever you’re voting for, the stakes are too high.
And that the prime lesson learned from 2000 is that every vote CAN count.
I put on a bumper sticker for the first time (A Veteran for Kerry) this election. The one I would like to put on would read:
We can blame the last four years on Bush, but we can only blame the next four on ourselves.
Also another thought this morning as one of the morning shows were talking about a poll re the youth vote and how historically young voters vote like their parents.
I think those “historical” statistics are about to be broken. This election is divisional. It is being fought out daily between husbands and wives, between lovers, between generations in the same house, friends, at the workplace, on teams, everywhere. And I think that is because everyone realizes how important this election is for America. How we chose our next president may be about what what we are as a country, as a democracy. But who we chose is about who we are as a people. And that is very personal.
There is a lot being said about the “uncommitted” but that is the wrong word. They are not uncommitted, they are torn. They cannot make up their minds because IT MATTERS.
It is not just about being passionate over our choice, it is about trying to convince others. There might be loud, vicious political rhetoric in the medias, but there is also intense, heartfelt dialog in the homes, at work, in restaurants, in chat rooms, on the campus, in gyms, on the golf course, in the flu shot lines, at the soccer game, in the car on the way to the mall.
My favorite bit: “We can blame the last four years on Bush, but we can only blame the next four on ourselves.” So very true.