I was walking down our street this morning and just over my shoulder I heard someone say, “Hello!”
I turned around and happily replied, “Hi, I wondered who lived there. I am so happy to meet you.”
“Hello!” they said again.
“Yes, my name is Richard, you just moved in, right?
“Hello!”
I walked up their drive and onto their front porch. Sitting on his perch in a big cage came his greeting again, “Hello.”
Yeah, I felt pretty silly. I had been suckered into a conversation that wasn’t going anywhere.
That happens to me a lot with voters, voters who simply parrot something they have heard but haven’t added any original thought.
They don’t look at facts, they simply repeat something they have heard that has been repetitiously resaid and reinforced. When they give their opinion, it isn’t any more informative than simply saying “Hello.” Well, maybe a bit more than that. More like “Hello, I am an idiot who can only say what I’ve heard.”
I’ll bet it happens a lot to you too. It isn’t easy to get people to think, to use Vote Smart to get the facts and come to the well-reasoned conclusions that we hope most Americans are capable of.
There is no time better than right now to remind all of your family, friends and colleagues, and church, community and school groups that VoteSmart.org exists and we can help them think it through. They don’t have to be someone’s parrot.
Good luck to us all Election Day,
Richard Kimball
Vote Smart President