odds and ends

Thomas Jefferson once said: "If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?"

I found this quote in a segment I stumbled upon this morning where Glenn Beck is talking to Bill O'Reilly about why he does not focus on cultural issues like that of gay marriage.



So now we have a growing list of GOP heavyweights who have declared that gay marriage is either valid, or not worth fighting about, include Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Cindy and Meghan McCain.

In other news, I'm reading a book I missed from 2004, "What's the Matter with Kansas." And we go back to the question of why, so often, people vote against their own self interest in a way to defeat cultural enemies, yet to be defeated.

Then of course, there is my topic of choice as of late: voter turn out. The NYTimes did a piece on the topic. It's an interesting analysis, covers primaries through Sept. 1, so NY is not included in the study. A big take away point is the decrease in partisan affiliated voters and partisan registered voters. There seems to be an increase in independent voters, the trouble with this is that the majority of states hold closed primaries in which you must be registered with the party to vote in the primary. I spoke with so many voters yesterday who were not eligible to vote in NY because they are registered Independents. The trouble here comes in that, at least in NY the battles are in primaries - the Democratic and Republican primaries. I think there is a misunderstanding among voters out there, people want change, people want a lack of party affiliation, both good things, the trouble is, is that there just aren't many primaries being fought on other party lines. So what ends up happening, is these voters vote in the general election with a choice of the candidates who won in the primaries...these voters are limiting their engagement, yet so thirsty for change.

Plenty more to say on all of this, but must get some things done...