What exactly are you hoping for when you choose a candidate? Do you vote for a specific candidate because you believe he has the same ideology as you and then assume he will wield his political power according to your shared values? Should a politician vote the people's will because he represents them or determine what he personally thinks is best once elected? What if the two are not one and the same?
What responsibility does a candidate have to the political party he represents? How well do you think our elected California officials are doing with hearing our wishes and acting accordingly? Does a politician vote on behalf of the people or the corporations who donate outrageous amounts of money to get him elected? Who should the elected official feel more responsible to?
A web site called Open Secrets states that the remaining nominees for the presidential field will need to raise $500,000,000 each in order to compete & ndash; a record sum! & To find out where all of that money is coming from you can click on the candidates' names and see who might be really pulling the strings. & &
Now, about last week's survey results. Thanks for participating! Based on the type of comments my recent blog posts received I assumed I was one of the only Republicans in the room. I was very surprised to see that 67 percent of the KPBS viewers who participated in my survey were also members of the G.O.P.
My mother assures me that she only voted once. Seventeen percent of participants claimed to be Democrats, five percent said they were registered members of the Green Party and another five percent said they were non-partisan. Nobody admitted they were registered as Libertarian or American Independent.
Amazingly, no one admitted to being an alien from outer space. (There was a comment from a reader that had me convinced otherwise.) &
An expected 68 percent of you felt your party accurately represented your values but with a slight shift. Only six percent of you thought your party described your ideology perfectly, but another six percent of you felt so disenfranchised by your registered party that you were switching party lines altogether. About 12 percent of you were ticked off about how your party seems to have shifted from its original ideology, but you were still remaining faithful to it. I figured someone would be frustrated enough with our system that you'd be willing to move to Canada, and according to the survey results, one of you should be packing your suitcase about now.
Finally, 41 percent of you have already decided who you are going to vote for. About 23 percent of you didn't know and 35 percent said you were still deciding.
Thankfully, no one said they were so fed up with the whole process that they were refusing to vote. So the dialog continues. &
- Citizen Voices blogger
Trina Boice is an author and mother of four who lives in Carlsbad.
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