Oh, Joe, yes, one could only hope you would get it in the back of your head.

As distasteful as I, too, find that man, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have a fight on our hands. I fear complacency.

Joe suffering makes me happy - thanks for the link.

alternate post:
Joe said, "Yup, Mitt stinks almost as bad as a dead intern in a Congressmans office"

@2: You're right to fear complacency. Twice while phone banking for Obama last night, I reached men who mocked me because "Obama's going to win Oregon, and he's going to sweep the whole country, so this whole [get out the vote] thing is a waste of time." Even when I noted that the 2000 election taught us not to count our votes until they're cast, I was still told I was wasting my time on a sure thing. Complacency is a real danger.

#4 - the 2000 election taught me only that my vote is irrelevant. I hope Obama wins, but I'll be staying home. You have fun voting!

@5: Your vote may or may not be irrelevant for the executive branch depending on where you live and how the rest of your state votes (although I would caution against being so careless, as the old saying goeas "If everyone did that, then..."). However, your vote is extremely relevant for the statewide and local positions, and especially the initiatives.

Don't stay home unless you're voting by mail.

Don't be complacent.

A mass of apathetic people like YOU are why the 2010 congressional elections happened.

YOU can help fix it.

RAWR.

I've never understood the weird instinct of those simps who smugly tell you that your/their vote doesn't count. It's usually some hipster doofus, or conspiracy nut.

I like voting. I've always liked voting. When I was just a little Catalina, us Vel-DuRays would pile into the Villager wagon, and go down to the Methodist church, where the polling place was. There was coffee and hot chocolate, and cookies. Papa Vel-DuRay, used to take me into the voting booth with him and let me pull the big lever on the machines they used to use in Iowa. (that was probably technically illegal, but he's dead, and it was fun, so get over it)

(I miss those voting machines. They were big and blue and purely mechanical. They even came with a little drape on the front. They used to let us use them for school elections also. But I digress)

Even now, voting by mail is fun. We sit in the breakfast nook, get out our black pens, fill out the ballots, and then drive to the post office.

What's not to like?

I'm with you, Catalina. I eagerly await my ballot to arrive by mail and once sent, look to see that it was received on the county website.

Plus, lots of people fought hard to earn the right to vote. That’s not to be taken for granted.

@7 Bless you, you civic-minded citizen, you!

Romney talks as if paying income taxes is the only thing that indicates whether someone is a citizen with a vested interest in this country. Wrong! Voting is the only thing that makes someone a real citizen.

C'mon, all you nihilistic fuckers, take back the damned country. Own it, or at least your little share of it. Vote. It may seem futile at times, but it's the only power we have, and abandoning it won't make you any more powerful. If nothing more, you'll be one more voter the politicians have to worry about.

Be the butterfly whose flapping wings change history.

@7 Voting precludes pretending to be superior to everyone else by arguing that voting is irrelevant.

I like voting. I look forward to voting. I'm casting an early ballot because I will need to be out of town on election day, but otherwise I even like going in on the actual day and being a part of my community in that way.

I am voting in Maine, which is virtually assured to go for Obama, but in addition to House and Senate races, there are ballot questions to be decided. In Maine we will be voting (hopefully) to bring marriage equality to the state.

Ever notice that most of the people who say their vote doesn't matter, or who claim that both major parties are the same are mostly white, heterosexual men?

The reason for that is that for white heterosexual men, the parties are more similar than for everyone else. The Republicans aren't trying to stuff them in a closet, take away their ability to vote or mess with their contraception and abortions.

They just have less to lose than minorities of various sorts, so they can take the purist/hip/edgy pose without so much danger.

@7 - Catalina, if you substitute "Presbyterian" for "Methodist" and "Pennsylvania" for "Iowa," we must have had the same childhood.

I remember being so ticked off that I missed being able to vote in the 1988 presidential election by six months. I was so jealous of my classmates who had been held back, even though most of them didn't bother voting. My 18th birthday was just a week before the PA primary in 1989, and my voter registration card came in the mail two days before the primary (I was allowed to register 6 weeks before I turned 18 since I would be 18 on election day). Even though I was just voting for local offices, I was so excited to vote.

I never missed an election until I moved to Louisiana, where there are elections every other month (Seriously - we have twice as many elections as the nearest state to us), and I sometimes forget that there is one happening. I think in December we are voting on whether Bobby Jindal should amend his bathroom routine.

Seriously - go vote. My vote for president isn't going to mean diddly squat in this state (where literally 98% of the white population voted for McCain last time and would vote for pretty much any white guy running against a black man), but I'm going to cast it anyway.

@5 If that's the way you feel, vote for Gary Johnson. He's not going to win, but the higher his vote tally, the closer we get to breaking the current duopoly of sameness.

/voting for Barack "All American" Obama

@ 5 - But, don't you see... That's just like saying that, because you were mugged once in 2000, you've refused to leave your house ever since! Because once upon a time your house was broken into and they stole all your electronics, you haven't had any electronics since then because why bother?

Except your reasoning is worse because in those two scenarios, the only person you'd be hurting is yourself, whereas, as has been pointed out, there are other issues on the ballot besides who gets to sit in the Oval Office. There are local races and initiatives where your vote actually DOES make a big difference, and not just to you, but to everyone in your community!

C'mon, people, VOTE!! It's free, it's fun, it's Democratic!

VOTE VOTE VOTE

@9: I figure there are three things I do purely because they're my duty as a citizen and for no other reason: Voting, paying taxes, and showing up for jury duty.

@16 A sense of duty. You are to be congratulated. I wish there were more like you.

Voting: it's like a standardized test, only more fun!

@12 -- Sorry, SLCamper, my anecdota tell me exactly the opposite. (I think there's also polling support for this conclusion.)

Some jobs are too big for any of us, they require all of us, which means they require each of us.

Your vote, your individual specific single vote didn't decide the election so you reckon it doesn't matter? What a bizarre conclusion! So your vote only matters if the election is decided by a single vote?

Get some perspective.

@12, thanks for stating that so eloquently. My two youngest brothers are arguing that both candidates are so similar that they're not voting at all (in Pennsylvania, no less), which grates on my parents and I to no end. I pointed out that if they give a shit about their gay older brother and uterus-having older sister, they should suck it up and vote Democrat, or at the very least write in a candidate that they do believe in. I may use their words to shame them into action.

*your* words, that is, if that's ok.