Eliot Spitzer Wants You To Rock The Vote

We ended up at a Democrat concert/rally on Thursday, and Eliot Spitzer was there. We had worked our way to the front of the crowd because I'm short and can't see over other people, so I was about three feet from him when he said that progressive movements are always the product of the effort of young people, and the only way to change the world is to do it. That was pretty cool. He was way better than the band, which was miked really badly (so there was enough noise to make your insides wiggle, but you couldn't actually hear anything). John Wesley Harding was there too. Then there was this other guy whose name I meant to remember, who had this neat rant from the perspective of a revolutionary (which ended with the thought that if you don't vote, you're just doing what they want you to do). Anyway, he looked sort of like Alan Rickman. I wish I remembered his name.

The anti-Bush folks are out in full force. Most days if I go out into midtown for lunch, I'm stopped by kids in DNC t-shirts doing fundraising. They always ask me if I want to beat Bush, and I say yeah, I don't want him to be re-elected. Then they ask me if I want to give money to John Kerry. And this is the part where I realize that don't actually want to vote for John Kerry, and I'm not the least bit proud to be a registered Democrat if this is the best the party can do. I want to vote NO. I remember at Caltech there was always a NO option on the ballot for student offices; if NO won, then the office would remain empty for that year. One year while I was there, NO did win for senior class president, and I can't say I noticed the difference.

But I always end up giving the DNC kids the crumpled bills from my pockets anyway; whatever change I have from lunch. It leaves me with this hollow feeling, that I'm contributing to perpetuate the same system regardless of whether the lesser or greater evil wins. I remember it was great fun to be thirteen years old and campaigning for Richard Stallings (a Democratic senate contender in Idaho); it was even greater fun to be seventeen and campaigning for an assortment of local Democrat candidates; and that Howard Dean had recaptured some of that hope and fun earlier in this election season. I think the common thread is that these are candidates I would want to invite into my home for dinner because they would create interesting, passionate, and informed conversation around the table. Bush and Kerry are sound bites - an echo of an echo of what was once an idea but is now just noise, carefully calibrated not to offend its core constituency.

I guess if I have to be a sound bite, it ought to be the one that won't further hasten armageddon. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. pthbhththhththh.