Well, it's official. The midterm elections are over. Colorado and other swing states are no longer overrun with political ads. We know who has won, and who has lost. Mark Udall's Facebook states: "It has been the greatest honor of my life to be your U.S. Senator and to represent the greatest state in the nation. Thanks so much for your support. -Mark" The implications of having a Republican senator representing Colorado is not going to be immediate. After all, he's only one vote. However, he is now part of a majority senate, with Mitch McConnell at the helm. On a state level, Colorado still has Hickenlooper as governor. We struck down Amendment 67. Control of the state senate is unclear as of yet, which will determine what this term will look like for Hickenlooper. Things that will immediately affect Coloradans haven't really changed.
However, in the long run, and on a national scale, politics has changed. The fact that Gardner won, and by such a large margin, spells a red future for Colorado. We see this wave happen a lot during a President's second term. People are dissatisfied by the President and the President's party, and so they vote for the opposite party. It happened during Bush's second term: there was a Democratic majority in 2006. That majority lasted through 2010 for the House, and lasted until now for the Senate. The elections in 2006 determined the next ten years of politics for the legislative branch. 2006 was a mid-term election, just like this one was. By the time Obama leaves office, it will have affected twelve years of national politics. This election, following this trend, will affect probably the next twelve nears of national politics.
In 2016, people will probably not vote for the Democrat. For some reason, people don't seem to like Obama. It's probably not a race thing. It's not like he's been the most publicly disrespected president in the history of approximately ever. A friend of mine shared a link to an opinion piece written by a Canadian on how we treat our president. Never before has it been acceptable to speak about a president so disparagingly. Four days before Obama's inauguration, John Boehner publicly stated that he hoped Obama would fail. Obama hadn't even gotten into office yet, and already people had started hating him. But it's not a race thing. Obama has attempted to do everything he said he would. He fought for health care, education, and jobs. He even managed to pass some things, like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009. Our national unemployment rate is at 5.9%. He's been the first President to openly support marriage equality. People often forget two things about his presidency. First, that for the past four years, he's been blocked tirelessly by the Republican majority in the house, and even though he was able to get the ACA through, it was blocked at every turn by this Republican majority, trying to defund and gut it. Second, that the state our nation was in when Bush left was really bad. It could have gotten much worse. It didn't though. Things got better. Maybe not much better, but see point number one in regards to that. Bush is not America's eccentric grandpa with a love of painting. He was not a good president, and that's not coming from a Democratic position, not really. A lot of Republicans were tired of Bush by the end of the second term. People wanted him out with a passion. America was not in a good state. Even after all that, we couldn't be bothered to even really give Obama a chance. But again, it's not a race thing.
In 2018, Coloradans probably won't vote for Bennet. His 2010 race was incredibly close, and the fact that we already voted Gardner into a seat that appeared to be, until March, a shoe-in for the Democrat, dictates that he won't be re-elected. We'll then have two Republican representatives for Colorado, which matters on a national level because Colorado is a swing state.
After 2018, we'll have two years left on Gardner's term, 2-6 years left on the presidency, and six years on that second senate seat. This is, effectively, twelve years of politics decided by this one election. This mid-term election that supposedly doesn't matter.
Of course, I'm hoping this doesn't happen. I refuse to believe that the representation people want is one that actively and proudly tries to take rights away from well over half of the population: women, minorities, the LGBT community. This is not to mention the fact that they make it incredibly difficult to have a quality k-12 education, access to higher education, and a wage that allows someone to support themselves on a forty hour work week. This is not to mention the fact that they care more about their own pockets than the quality of our water, our air, and our environment in general. This is not the representation we need, or that we should want, and I encourage everyone who lives in Colorado, as well as on a national scale, to stop the tide of incredibly right-wing politicians from coming in. Stop the path that this election has put us on and vote the next year.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Why Voting Is Important
We've got seven days until this mid-term election, which happens on November 4th. However, thanks to new voting laws, the election isn't just about one day anymore. It's a whole month. Colorado has decided to make its voting restrictions some of the most relaxed in the country, while some states are trying to make voting more restrictive, especially for minorities and lower-income demographics. So what does this mean, exactly?
First off, registering to vote is incredibly easy. If you've got a Colorado driver's license, registering to vote takes about two minutes using justvotecolorado.org. The deadline to register this way has passed for this election. You can also update your voter registration to a new address and still receive a mail-in ballot, which I'll talk about more momentarily. So what if you missed the deadline or don't have a Colorado driver's license? All you have to do is go down to a voting place (doesn't matter which one, just as long as it's in your county) and register to vote. You just have to have lived in the state for 22 days (which is not a new law). The deadline for this is, well, November 4th at 7pm.
You also can vote a ton of different ways. If you're registered to vote in Colorado, you receive a mail-in ballot which just has to be mailed in by October 31st or dropped off by November 4th at 7pm. If you're not registered yet, or your address is wrong, then you can, like I said, still do that and get your ballot...just be quick about it. If you miss that deadline or you like the experience of voting in person, you can vote early every day except Sundays at any polling place. Hours vary by location, but most seem to be 8am-5pm. Even if you're super busy and can't get there before election day, your employer is REQUIRED to give you time during election day to vote, and polling places are open from 7am to 7pm.
So despite the fact that voting is made super easy, people still aren't voting. There are people who make excuses: "I'm too busy," and people who flat out just don't want to vote. To those who don't because they think their vote doesn't matter: it does. If everyone thought that they shouldn't vote because they don't matter, no one would vote. Your vote helps make up a public opinion, and especially in a swing state, your vote matters so much. Often elections come down to a few thousand votes per county, which is absolutely ridiculous to think about when Denver has a population of nearly 650,000 people. To the people who think that voting has never changed anything, I'm sorry, but you're not right. You underestimate the power that voting has, not only for putting people in office but for things like a forty hour work week, public schools, and safe abortions. Because of voting, a black man has served two terms as President and Colorado/ Washington has legalized marijuana just in the past six years. Not voting is not rebellion. It is submission. If you don't vote, what right do you have to complain about anything that happens in the government? So what if it might not change anything? What if it does change something? That is why we must vote, because if we don't we are denying the possibility of that change.
People have fought, picketed, protested, and died for the right to vote and you dishonor their memory by not voting. How dare we disregard that sacrifice by not voting? We have fought for years to allow every person to vote. It has been less than a hundred years since all citizens have had the right to vote, and that citizens are not only white males. People have fought discriminatory voting laws that prevented minorities from voting even more recently, and some places where it still occurs, but here, in a state that makes voting so easy, people aren't voting.
Millennials of voting age (18-35) make up 23.5% of the population, while Baby Boomers make up 14.1% of the population (those 65+). The Millennial demographic is generally more liberal and progressive than the Baby Boomers, and Millennials have the ability to cancel out the Baby Boomer vote and then some. Unfortunately, if one thing is known, it's that Baby Boomers vote pretty much every year. Voter turnout for the 2008 election? 69% of Baby Boomers voted, while 51% of Millennials voted (NYTimes). This isn't to say that they weren't the same when they were the same age, and Millennials register to vote more often, but we have the potential to really change the political atmosphere. 36.3% of America's population is non-white. Demographics for the LGBTQA population are less clear since it's something people are less likely to admit, but these are all demographics that can be game changers in a big way, if we all turn out. Overall, America in general needs to exercise the main right that makes us a republic, not a dictatorship. We have the power to dictate what happens in regards to human rights, the environment, easier paths to education, our foreign relations, and everything else. We get to decide. We just have to vote.
To end, here's something to make you chuckle: dft.ba/-rockthevote
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