"Every Vote Counts" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Every Vote Counts

If you live on a steady diet of political polls, you probably need a bromo seltzer every coupla hours. Their numbers are all over the map and unless you know how they work, it’s hard to figure out which ones make sense. I won’t get into the details of how to discern what’s going on because of the complexity, but offer this warning. Most of the nationwide polls are based on questionable presumptions.

Perhaps more significant are some major socio-political movements taking place that don’t register in the standard polling. For instance, there are a whole slew of Americans who don’t have regular landline telephones, just cellphones. And there are tens of millions who didn’t vote in 2000 who aren’t likely to be polled because they aren’t considered likely voters.

Then there are the myriad organizations whose members are now swarming into the battleground states to encourage people, up-close-‘n-personal, to cast their so important votes. They’re walking precincts, calling folks over and over again and will be driving them to polls.

For myself, outreach is kinda limited because most of the people I know live in states where Kerry is holding strong. He’s not likely to lose California, Massachusetts or New York. But one state that is on the edge is Florida. It was scandalous incompetence and corruption that gave Bush enough votes in The Sunshine State four years ago to open the door for the Supreme Court to steal the election. Since then, The Bush Boy’s brother, Governor Jeb, has been pulling out all of the stops, trying to keep Democrats off the voting rolls.

As I reported in an earlier essay, my aunt lives in Florida and she was planning to vote for Bush-Lite, thinking he was better for Israel. But last week she told me that she’s changed her mind. She doesn’t like the idea that Bush believes God is speaking through him -- she doesn’t like the messianic arrogance -- and so will vote for Kerry. That’s only one person’s opinion, or maybe not; whatever clears the haze...by November 2nd.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.