Democracy -- It's Such a Bother

Mike Malott says he's staying home.

In a rant in the Livingston Press and Argus for Wednesday (January 2, 2008), Malott gripes about the fact that he has to basically declare a party preference in order to vote in Michigan's January 15th presidential primary and warns of the potential aftermath. As a protest, he's not going to vote.

"If you vote on Jan. 15, expect to get a ton of phone calls and mailings from candidates in your party in every election in the future, whether you care about it or not. You think you get a lot of phone calls from politicians now? Hold on to your hat," he says.

Oh, my. How horrible. People are going to be asked to participate in their democracy in the future. We can't have that. No, siree. We can't be interrupted while we're doing something really important like watching "American Idol."

Actually, some people probably will get fewer calls. Republicans are likely to look at the list of Democrats and scratch them off their call lists, and vice versa. Why spend scarce time and money calling people you now know belong to the other party?

Furthermore, I find it amusing that some people get all exercised about their loss of privacy in a closed primary. Too few of them are worried about the telephone companies helping the federal government illegally listen to millions of Americans' phone calls for me to believe that they take the right to privacy very seriously.

In Malott's case, it's more likely that he's staying home because the names on the Republican Party ballot are such a bunch of losers that he's embarrassed to ask for the ballot.