VOTER FATIGUE IN CALIFORNIA?….The California primary is now less than two weeks away and I just noticed something odd: it’s as quiet as a tomb around here. I don’t know if it’s just a result of voter fatigue after putting up with the whole recall circus just a few months ago, but the upcoming election is getting virtually no attention:
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There’s the Democratic primary, of course, but I’ve seen virtually nothing about it. No polls, no coverage, no nothing. As far as the mainstream media is concerned, it might as well not be happening.
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There’s also a Republican primary for the Senate seat currently occupied by Barbara Boxer. Because Boxer is so liberal, this is a seat that Republicans at least have a shot of picking up, but the primary has been nearly invisible. In fact, I had practically forgotten there was a Republican primary until I happened to read an article about it today that was buried in the local section of the paper.
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We also have to vote on a couple of bond and budget measures that are pretty critical to solving our deficit problems. I’ve seen a few TV ads on both sides, but that’s it. I went looking for poll results on these measures the other day and could barely find anything. I finally found a single 3-week-old poll showing that the main bond measure had only 33% support. Since failure is supposedly disastrous for our fiscal health, you’d think this would be getting a bit more attention.
(Just today another poll was released showing 38% support. Still pretty miserable.)
Anyway, this lack of attention seems odd since there are actually three separate races on the ballot and all of them are both important and fairly competitive. It’s curious that nobody seems to care much about it.
POSTSCRIPT: Of course, eagle-eyed readers will note that this is pretty much the first time I’ve mentioned the upcoming election too….
