Monday, Nov. 03, 2008

Political Circus

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi.

With the election less than a day away, I have to ask...WHERE WERE YOU PEOPLE?!

Tracy from Tri-City Entertainment and I threw together a political roundtable. With less than a week's worth of preparation, we contacted everyone who came to our minds who we thought would be down. Turns out, people are busy.

Waking up early, I went out to buy some snacks. Pretzels, chips, salsas, cookies and red and blue bowls (red and blue...get it? Cheesy, I know). Tracy graciously offered her home as our venue and even put balloons in her trees to help people find her house. Even though I now live in a house, I wasn't about to have strangers over. I'm paranoid like that.

Our goal was to get younger people's perspective. What do they want these days? What are they looking for? Is it as simple as choosing somebody to be on your dodge ball team?

Her husband and brother-in-law stuck around and were willing to be a part of the event. As I sat down in their kitchen, her brother-in-law asked me about my wedding-planning. After some uncomfortable laughter, he told me he reads my blog. It's always somewhat strange when a stranger recognizes you and knows more about you sometimes than your closest friends.

They offered me pumpkin seeds mixed with fried peas, an interesting but delicious combination.

"The only reason I haven't eaten them is because he got them at a flea market and I was kind of..." Tracy made a nervous face.

"I guess I'm the guinea pig," I said, suddenly wondering what bug I was harboring inside my stomach.

We were all ready to start our political discussion, expecting the door to ring and people to come pouring through. Except it didn't happen.

About a half hour past the starting time, there was a knock on the door. One of Tracy's friends came by, telling us her husband wasn't going to make it. Giddy for our first volunteer, we gathered around her, offering her up snacks (mostly Tracy's) and dove right into politics. Her friend even gave us political DVDs for us to watch.

As I texted my friends and Beefy, asking why they weren't showing up, I feared that this may be it. It was the night after Halloween and a Saturday night at that. People weren't going to attend a political gathering. They wanted to go out and drink. That's when I realized that maybe we would have had a better turnout if we went to an actual bar. At least we could pester people into giving us their drunken opinion.

It was fun getting to hear Tracy and her friends' opinions. They are the type of people who are sponges and just soak up all this information. If someone had a question about a certain initiative or candidate, they had all their background information.

Which made me wonder. How much do people actually know? What do they base their decisions on? Are people shallow and simply vote for the guy with the best hair? How many people still won't vote for an African American? Are people simply cut 'n dry when it comes to voting for a Republican or Democrat? Are they die-hard red? Are more people becoming blue? How many this year are undecided?

I'm not necessarily saying that I want Obama to win. But what if he doesn't - will there be riots? Will it be one of the biggest race cards? Will people graciously understand and go on about their lives? Will people freak out? Will the younger voters finally break through past 20 million votes?

If you haven't sent out your ballot, you'd better get on it. There's not much time left. If you need any help deciding on who to vote for, just go with your first instinct. Or you could try Tracy's method, where you smack three fingers down on a table (each finger representing A, B and C) and whichever finger hurts the most, that's the one you vote for. What, you have a better idea?