An e-mail

Greetings fellow liberal malcontents! We received this e-mail yesterday. Please comment on these fascinating conundrums.

Dear,

As you may remember my musings from the weekend immediately following the election (that we watched together, thanks for the hospitality), I was quite perplexed by a few occurrences as reported by the major media. Not being an avid TV watcher (or owner, for that matter) may have contributed to my perplexity as I am not accustomed to the rampant inanities put forth by the talking heads every night. Nonetheless, some of these puzzling incidents have now developed into a full-fledged neurosis.

Some of the more major conundrums I was dealing with were: if the exit polls were so wrong on election night predicting the winner, why, only a day later, did all the infotainment people hold them up high as proof to their viewers that it was “moral issues” that decided the election.? Were these the same polls that were horribly inaccurate on election night that were now the pillars of truth a day later?

Along the same lines, I struggle with this new America where it is no longer “the economy, stupid.” For years we have been told that above all else, people vote according to their current economic condition. Did the millions who lost jobs under Bush’s economic policies vote for him anyway, because they were more concerned about gay marriage? And even if we listened to the Republicans, and believed that national security, in fact, was the one and only issue we should consider when casting our ballots, did that drop to a distant third in peoples minds, behind issues that were seldom, if ever, talked or written about?

One last conundrum I will bring up (though there are others). Historically, high voter turnout was associated with an electorate desirous of change. Did this tenet, like exit polling and “it’s the economy, stupid” suddenly become irrelevant in this last election? Have all the lessons of elections past suddenly lost their credibility, or is something else going on here? This question has lately kept me up at night. Why? Because NO ONE SEEMS TO WANT TO ANSWER IT!!!!! These are all legitimate questions, and I’m sure I’m not the only one with them, but ever since I left the comfort of your house and TV, I have not heard them addresse d much, or at all. At least not on NPR, which is my news source of choice (being TVless). And not in the paper, either. I have found some websites sympathetic to my cause. But we all know there are a lot of crackpots out there with websites. So if you get a chance, check out the links/attachments below. Or maybe your husband has done some investigating into this as well. He has access to the internet, right? Then you can let me know if my wishful thinking is turning me into a crackpot. I would hate for Miles’ favorite uncle to be that crazy uncle that no one likes to talk about.

Plus, you told me you were getting together with your sensible neighbors at some point to determine a course of action for sensible people to take. I’d like to be among the sensible people. So let me know if my pet issue has struck a nerve with any of them. And let me know what you sensible people decide to do about the frightening state of our democracy.



links below:

http://www.helpamericarecount.org/


http://www.blackboxvoting.org/