Sunday, September 03, 2000
Aarrrgh
Your vote is canceled
By PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. I'm talking about my own.
I have just spent an hour on the phone with Cheryl O'Donnell of Cincinnati, who was chosen by USA Today Weekend to be the covergirl for the “Dot.Com Moms” who will pick our next president — if they are not too busy passing out juice boxes at a soccer game.
“I don't follow politics unless it's time to vote,” Mrs. O'Donnell said. She candidly admits she knows a whole lot of nothing, relies on table scraps of news on TV and radio and seldom reads more than the front page of a newspaper or a quick scan of Newsweek. She will watch the debates and pick the candidate who “connects with me.”
To quote Charlie Brown: Aarrrgh!
I am such a fool. Why have I wasted my life reading newspapers and magazines, learning the difference between NAFTA and GATT, studying the lurid Starr report, analyzing the fine-print in Social Security reforms? I've sweated out an entire season of political football — just so it can be yanked away on election day by millions of minivan moms who will cancel my vote faster than Al smooches Tipper.
It's like finding out the World Series will be decided by the synchronized swim team from Uruguay.
Mrs. O'Donnell is very nice. She's a Sunday school teacher, Girl Scout leader and volunteer who works part-time at PNC Bank and runs her own online business when she's not shuttling her two daughters to soccer, softball, volleyball and tennis.
But she doesn't know jack. “I would love to be better informed, but I don't see how I can be in the next four or five years of my life,” she said. “I don't have a minute in my day.”
She was selected for USA Today Weekend's story (today) because she's busy, she fits the specs for the Year 2000 model Soccer Mom and because she has picked the winners in six straight presidential races: Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton.
She doesn't regret a single vote. “I try not to have any regrets anywhere in my life.”
Not even Clinton after his sex scandals and lying?
“A lot of people don't believe him, but he gives a good speech,” she said. “Nobody's perfect . . . but morality was not the reason I voted for him.”
“You have to separate the political from the moral.”
Aarrrgh!
“Some of my friends are shocked that I don't stay involved in politics year round,” Mrs. O'Donnell said, but she hasn't begun to make up her mind this year.
And millions of Dot.Com Moms and Dilbertland Dads agree. They are paper boats barely touching the surface of a pond, pushed to and fro by fickle breezes.
They see politics as an uncomfortable medical procedure — something you go through every four years after a certain age. The quicker it's over with, the better. And the only important question is: What's it mean to me personally?
They feel strongly both ways on abortion, gay rights and gun control. They'd rather miss a season of soccer than “judge” right and wrong. Their biggest issue is education — because school just started, ya know.
Most of all, they just want it all to go away.
This is where I'm supposed to say it's scary that our elections are decided by people who think morality and politics are in separate aisles at the supermarket. But I promised to be kind. So maybe all the people in the mushy middle are the ballast that keeps the ship of state from listing to extreme port or starboard.
And Dot.Com Mom has no regrets, no worries. Wish I could say the same. Aarrrgh!
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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