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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/17/10

Will the Upcoming Election Keep This Country Up?

By       (Page 1 of 3 pages)   1 comment, In Series: Election Integrity

Will the Upcoming Election Keep This Country Up?

Polls are reported. The Dems are gaining slim ground. Harry Reid may keep his spot. Remember when Tom Daschle was reduced to knocking on doors and treated like a vacuum cleaner salesman when he sought reelection as Senate Majority Leader? I don't think that Reid has descended to that level and hope he doesn't.

The polls are, of course, reported by hard-working colleagues to keep up our momentum. Would that they were on the mark. Let the charismatic youngsters maintain this momentum and reach the populace.

I suggested to one--they persist in soliciting me to make phone calls though I am a writer, not a talker--that what we really need to reach people in the heartland are others they can really relate to. Why not consult sociologists, those or other laypersons familiar with their culture and ways of communication? Can these young, idealistic, hyperactive kids reach them the way they need to be reached?

Can they relate to the misery of people who didn't succeed under one political party and so turn their aspirations toward the other? Do they not understand that change along the lines we are desperate for takes time and that things are turning around despite the push against the middle class and those less fortunate?

How can someone crowded in with understanding relatives or camped out in some wilderness be rational, when they've slid from the American Dream to its inverse? How can they understand the economy, even the high-end ones with advanced degrees, when it hits them so hard their emotions take over?

That I can relate to.

One energetic youngster I heard speak on NPR, Barack Obama, was most compelling. He asked the public whether we'd prefer to slide down into the sort of ideological administration that ruined the economy in the first place.

Obama, as president, can't forget that they exist and persists in communicating with them and attempting compromise. To a point I can relate to that also, because money, not ideals, rules the roost. Dollars trump votes nine times out of ten. Dollars are traded for votes, votes for dollars.

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Marta Steele is an author/editor/blogger who has been writing for Opednews.com since 2006. She is also author of the 2012 book "Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols: The Election Integrity Movement's Nonstop Battle to Win Back the People's Vote, (more...)
 

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