If you haven’t seen it, CNN is running a series of articles about “undecided” voters, a.k.a. people who don’t pay attention to politics until three weeks before the election. This week their featured voter is a guy named Joe Stoltz. Joe is a family man whose flooring business went under during the recession. He now struggles to pay his bills and can’t afford things like lobsters and vacations. Seriously, those are the things the article named. I don’t doubt it’s been tough for Joe, but CNN writers have a strange definition of the word “struggling.” Anyway, Joe voted for Obama in 2008, but given his inability to find a job, he’s now considering changing his vote. Here’s the article, which ends with the following ominous statement:
Joe Stoltz takes his seat in front of a computer workstation. This is the day when he begins again. Election Day will be equally momentous. He's already made a tough decision about his own life. He has a few more weeks left to make one about America.
I'm sick of hearing these stories about "typical" Americans who don't represent the general public at all. One day it's the "typical" Millenial who is 27 and lives in his parents' garage. The next day it's a "typical" baby boomer who was laid off in 2008 and hasn't been able to find a job. The economy isn't great, but we're not living in a Hunger Games-style post-apocalyptic nightmare. The baby boomer is unemployed because he refused to abandon a dying industry, and the Millenial lives at home because he likes playing Call of Duty and smoking weed more than job searching. Some people are like that. We'll never be able to create a system where everybody is a champion. This isn't little league tee-ball, or the Special Olympics, or the puppy bowl, where everyone is a winner. America is like the NFL. You can try for parity, but you're always going to have the Buffalo Bills.
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