Ponder this quote for a minute:
“If there’s someone out there who votes for the candidate who Twitters more, then we need to take away his voter-registration card.”
It’s from Michael Palmer, who headed the new media operations for the McCain-Palin campaign, in the Wall Street Journal.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, votes for their own reasons. Many people I heard before the election were voting – or not voting – for a particular candidate:
- because of what they’d “heard”
- because they didn’t like a particular political stand the person took 20 years ago
- because of speaking eloquence
If someone votes for someone because the candidate Twitter’s more, is that really a reason to pull their voter card?
We should be lauding people who get off their couches, navigate obstacles from their wheelchairs, and pull levers who haven’t done so in 50 years. Regardless of their reasons, they voted.
How can the average resident make an informed decision about a local judge in an election? What’s the criteria? It was something I struggled with this year, but I voted for those I knew. Should my voter-registration card be pulled, too?