crossposted from Generation X-Y Democrat blog
On April 7th, 2009, the voting booths were open in my home county of Illinois (McHenry).
According to the Northwest Herald, there are 200,853 registered voters.
Want to know how many showed up on April 7th?
About 31,000.
Less than 16 percent.
Now I have admitted to not being a long-time political activist - just getting in the swing of things the last couple of years - so I think I am going to approach this subject from a different perspective; somewhere in between "Why the heck aren't people showing up?" and "Who the heck cares?".
In 2008, we had a very dramatic Presidential election that, while it didn't dramatically increase the percentage of the youth vote (the Generation Y Democrats are just now voting), it certainly increased the enthusiasm of the percentage that actually did go out to vote. And while I believe that anyone with a "D" next to their name on the ballot would have won the election, it is also my belief that, to a certain extent, we had such an extraordinary candidate that he alone could bring people with him to the polls.
...kind of like the Chicago Bulls in the early Jordan years - it didn't matter if the Bulls were good or not, because Jordan was popular enough to have fans buy tickets to come to the games all around the league.
Comparing Obama to Jordan is a complement in terms of popularity, not just from a Chicago perspective, but from a Generation X-Y perspective. Everyone my age knows Jordan and what he meant to the league and the NBA.
But this is where the comparisons stop, because after Jordan retired, Bulls fans still bought tickets and still came to the games - all this despite being the worst team in the league for the first half of this decade.
Obama fans? Well, once the 2008 election was over, they felt little need to go back to the polls.
31,000 showed up for local elections in McHenry County on April 7th. Do you know how many people voted for the Presidential election in McHenry County? 137,133. President Obama received 72,288 votes by himself.
So what's wrong here?
I understand, and somewhat agree with, the argument that local elections aren't too popular at any time - that you don't get the glitz and the glamour of the nationally known figures on TV, yada yada yada.
But wasn't this time supposed to be different?
While the Bulls did have Michael Jordan and their championships, they knew the key to bringing in fans and generating revenue was to build a solid foundation of fans on a reputation of a family-friendly experience. They knew that Jordan couldn't play forever, so they had to also create an atmosphere where people of all ages would be welcomed with open arms, and they did so by making the games not just about basketball, but about entertainment. Soon, these people wouldn't be just fans, but they would be part of the Bulls family.
The bottom line is this - Democrats need to focus on the party and getting people involved with the party. We need to increase the size of our family.
We can't expect people to just show up to the polls for candidates. There is not enough money to do this. When I was phonebanking for our local officials, and I had a few people say they would not commit to voting because they did not know what sort of platform the candidates were putting forth. They did not know what the local officials stood for.
Really? These candidates are running for smaller offices on behalf of the Democratic Party! People don't have at least a vague knowledge of the core values they stand for?
It's not too late people, but for all the focus we have on finding future candidates that appeal to voters, we need to put just as much effort in inviting people into our party.
Listen folks, the core message is already there. We are already past the "Anyone But Bush" argument. People believe in our core values. They believe that education should be a high priority. They believe that healthcare should be affordable and accessible. They believe in the benefit of social programs that bring us together. They believe that we need a government, even a local government, that should put the priorities of our towns and villages as a whole above spending tax dollars to benefit the wealthy.
Now sure, I am inexperienced politically, so maybe this has been done before, but has it? In my time of being a registered voter, I have gotten dozens and dozens of calls to vote for a candidates in a particular election, but not once have I gotten a call from either party for the sole purpose of wanting to educate me on their beliefs so I would support them in the future. I know dozens of people my age who don't know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican.
I believe that if we educate people about our beliefs, it will be a whole heck of a lot easier to count on people showing up on election day. But more importantly, we will establish a larger foundation. A bigger family.