We’re entering a week that includes one of the biggest national happenings on the calendar — featuring participants and teams that tirelessly have worked long hours and faced many battles to get to this point. Of course, I’m referring to the Iowa caucuses.
The Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos may own the spotlight on Super Bowl Sunday, but the never-ending political run-up to this week’s election-season kickoff makes the Super Bowl pre-game show look more like a six-second viral Vine video — say that ten times fast! The first official statewide presidential campaign contest may be Iowa’s leap-yearly Super Bowl, Olympics and Miss Universe Pageant all rolled into one, but no matter how many times the process is explained to me, I still can’t figure out exactly how a Caucus works.
Maybe to add some clarity, we should have had Steve Harvey announce the Democratic and Republican winners? Nah…maybe not. Although, a pins-and-needles announcement by our host that Miss Columbia and Adele are their party’s top vote-getters would spark some interesting candidate spin-room conversation before Steve corrects himself and blames a hanging chad on his winners’ card for throwing him off.
The Illinois Primary Election (caucus-free voting!) is less than two months away and happens on Tuesday, March 15. I am really not looking forward to the upcoming video blizzard of endless campaign ads filling each commercial break of everything on TV. Must we see Donald, Hillary and the whole gang during every Bulls telecast time-out or between periods of every Blackhawks game? I don’t know if my DVR can hold that many games.
It’s easy to see how even the most regular voters can become disenfranchised by the merry-go-round media frenzy hyping the verbal mud-slinging and paying too little attention to issues and viewpoints that should be cutting through the clutter. It’s even more of a challenge for voters to find out where candidates stand on issues so they know whom to support — but it’s a challenge worth taking.
I like the saying, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.” So even if the election only features races for the county’s Mosquito Abatement Board of Directors and Dog Catcher – I’m voting. Don’t let the candidates’ bloviating and finger pointing discourage you from casting a ballot in March. Democracy is a group effort and doesn’t see its full potential if fewer rather than more voices are heard on election day.
Think of it this way: If all our past and present soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and other armed forces personnel have been willing to serve our country every day — the least we can do in their honor is preserve democracy on our end and cast a ballot every once in a while.
Eric Scott is a freelance writer for the Pioneer Press
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