One Sentence Says A Lot

All that GOTV [Get Out the Vote] effort paid off -- but for both parties. Forty-four percent of eligible voters in the six state senate districts cast a ballot on August 9th, just shy of the combined turnout for the 2010 governor's race.
~ from The Badger State's Bloody Stalemate by Andy Kroll ~

The above sentence is from an article about the recent recall elections in the State of Wisconsin. What surprised me was that Kroll viewed the figure of 44 percent as historically significant in a positive way.

Here we have -- by all accounts -- a massive and expensive GOTV effort and still less than 1 in 2 eligible voters decided to participate. What should this tell us?

It tells us that Wisconsinites -- just like everywhere else -- realize that it doesn't make that much of a substantive difference which of the two corporate political party candidates is elected. Both parties are responsible for the mess we're in and neither party has any real interest in getting us out of it.

When a person comes to grips with the fact that it doesn't matter who you send to your statehouse or the nation's capitol because they all feed from the same corporate trough, there is little enthusiasm for taking time out of your day to go through the motions of "making a difference."

I bet you that the election of President Obama only solidified this unenthusiastic response. It wasn't that long ago that voters across the nation were duped by the "audacity of hope." They turned out in droves to send a man to Washington who promised to look out for the needs and interests of the common people.

Unfortunately, just like so many others before him, those pledges and promises evaporated once he ascended to the throne. He immediately turned his back on the body of his supporters and embraced and, in some cases, expanded upon many of the vile policies of his predecessor. Any semblance of hope vanished overnight and with it went much of the enthusiasm.

So, when Democrats in Wisconsin tried to woo potential voters with the prospect of dramatic change in state affairs, I'm thinking that many thought to themselves, "I'm not going down that road again." I think the old adage was at work here: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fifty-six percent of the eligible voters in those Wisconsin senate districts simply decided they were not going to be played for fools!