I’m just back from voting today, although I’m not sure why. Force of habit, perhaps?
Yes, the candidates mostly were for local or statewide office, so it is less likely the results will be outright fudged, as they most obviously were in the last presidential election.
Yes, it’s important as a good citizen to vote and exercise the franchise so many have fought and died to preserve.
Yes, you have no room to gripe if you can’t be bothered to take a few minutes to vote.
But, for every person who bothers to study the candidates and their positions and vote accordingly, there are at least as many – probably more – who vote based solely on party affiliation, or what freebies the candidates are promising to distribute, or how effective the often-false campaign ads have been.
Again, this is not so much the case in this election. But more often than not, it is.
What has been going on in Virginia’s governor race speaks volumes. The loudmouthed Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, a Clintonista from way back when, is looking to play the race card as his one-time healthy lead in the polls shrinks, or even inverts if you believe a Fox News poll.
It’s vintage Democratic playbook. They get Democratic operatives to pose as right-wing racists in front of a Glenn Youngkin campaign bus. Youngkin is McAuliffe’s Republican opponent.
Reliable lapdog LameStream media ran with the photo and it was a sensation on social media, AKA The Megaphone for Morons.
Only after a news cycle were there reluctant admissions that it was a staged photo by Democrats. It’s like when a hit job is bannered across the front page of a newspaper in 90-point type, but the correction is buried at the bottom of page two; a paragraph or so with maybe a 24-point headline.
Will the fake Youngkin photo and other McAuliffe distortions or outright lies work? Don’t bet against it.
It’s possible McAuliffe will win a fair election in a squeaker. It’s possible Youngkin will win in reality, but the official results will show otherwise. It’s possible enough thumbs will be pressed on the electoral scales to give McAuliffe a purported runaway victory.
Reports indicate about 1 million Virginians voted early and McAuliffe is up 300,000 among those. That’s a big deficit for Youngkin to overcome based on election-day turnout. We’ll assume for now that the early voting was all legitimate and lacking the Georgia stench.
This Virginia race is being painted as a referendum on Joe Biden, who lived up to his Sleepy Joe nickname this week by falling asleep while ostensibly listening to a speech at the global climate-fest.
The only referendum on Biden that would matter to me is a national recall vote, and that isn’t happening.
The man and woman campaigners outside my polling place concurred regarding the sad state of elections in this country, but were happy to see someone (me) operating on autopilot despite waning faith in the legitimacy of the results we have reported to us.
“Don’t give up” the woman implored.
I’m not giving up, but merely acknowledging that the system is badly broken and the solution moving forward is not likely to be found at the ballot box.
Sam Ross Jr's site 