(We shouldn't forget those voters that don't vote b/c they aren't registered. 85,000 were registered in Travis County in 2004 aiding in Strama's election. If even 20,000 more new voters had been added to the Dallas County poll in 2004, just about every countywide judicial candidate would have won (though Dallas Dems expect to pick up many of those in 2006). - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
The biggest bloc of voters in every election is those who don't vote. They are the real majority who control every election. Instead of spending so much time on who will serve in what Party position or on what committee or who is hosting what reception or who is getting recognized for what or by whom or who slighted whom or who endorsed whom, activist Democrats need to leap out of the box of junior high school politics that they get themselves caught in, and learn to speak to the non-voting majority. I am suggesting a subtle yet major paradigm shift. That is, to think of the citizens who who have been choosing not to vote not as non-voters, but as voters who are casting ballots of abstention. Maybe they are telling us something; after all, they are the majority, and we do believe in democracy, don't we? Think about this for a few minutes and let it sink in. It could lead one to challenge many conventional assumptions about political messages and tactics.
What do the two have in common? Patrick and Friedman are both lousy, loud-mouthed Texas political figures. I can't imagine what they'd be like together in the same room. If you're in Houston, you might want to turn in 700 AM this afternoon just to hear what happens.
In an article published this past Sunday in the Dallas Morning News, Professor Allan Saxe of the University of Texas in Arlington was quoted as saying, "I'd much rather young people vote on American Idol than for who is going to be U.S. senator." Professor Saxe effectively has branded the vast majority of young people as uninformed and unqualified to participate in politics.
