Louisville Courier Journal Uses "Reasons To Vote" To Attempt To Pump Up Its Voter Base For Tuesday.

Reasons to vote

Nobody's “side” wins every election. The pendulum swings, sometimes in directions some of us like, sometimes in directions others prefer. This is shaping up as a gloomy year for voters of a progressive bent, and pollsters and analysts predict that many of them will be too discouraged to vote. That would be a mistake.

Some races remain very close and could be decided by turnout. In others, even the backers of losing candidates can make their voices heard, if they speak in big enough numbers. In any event, there are lots of questions and issues which progressive and moderate independent voters should consider important, think about — and, on Tuesday, express an opinion on them. They include:

Do voters want Washington effectively to sit on its hands about the economy? Republican and tea party bombast about the deficit and spending is irrelevant to the current dilemma. Both pose long-term challenges that will have to be addressed forcefully in better times, but the deficit, the national debt and the bailout and stimulus programs of the Bush and Obama administrations have one thing in common — none of them is responsible for the economic crisis of 2008 or for its lingering impact. A GOP-dominated Congress that plays to the tea party — by focusing (likely more with words than deeds, at that) on the deficit and discretionary spending — will be one that takes no meaningful action to bolster the economy or reduce unemployment.

Avoided depression

Most Republican candidates and the tea party contend that the stimulus and bailout bills did no good. Does that view withstand any fair-minded assessment of the facts? Every congressman in the country, including conservative Republicans, can point to jobs in his or her district that the stimulus made possible. The nation's key financial institutions teetered, but they did not collapse — and drag the world into depression. The auto companies are recovering. Would their demise have served national purposes better? Nonpartisan economic studies project that the unemployment rate would have reached 16 percent without the stimulus spending and auto bailout. Would that have been preferable to the present situation?

Republican strategists, the tea party and “hate radio” insist that President Obama foisted an unpopular health care reform on a hostile public that was taken by surprise. Actually, as a presidential candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama stressed his commitment to health care reform and swept to victory. The plan that passed was similar to ones advocated in the past by Republicans. (Liberal Democrats wanted a government-run “public option” that was not enacted.) Do voters really want to return to insurance companies the right to deny or cancel coverage for pre-existing conditions? Do they really want tens of millions of Americans to be unable to afford or find insurance? Would it really be better to repeal this year's historic legislation — as pledged by many Republicans, who most assuredly would not replace it with some other form of genuine reform — than to improve its cost-control mechanisms and address other shortcomings?

Burden of warming

Much is made by Republicans and tea party demagogues of the burdens we are leaving to future generations. They are talking of government debt. But what of leaving them a world facing potentially disastrous climate change? Do Americans really want a government dominated by people who — for economic, ideological or religious reasons — deny the overwhelming body of science that makes clear that such change is occurring?

Finally, certain key American constituencies should think one last time about what is being said in this campaign and consider whether they want to condone it with their silence.

Do African-American voters, for example, want to accept passively the unprecedented trashing of the country's first black president by hate-mongers as a “socialist,” “communist,” “Nazi” or “Muslim terrorist”? Were they not appalled by how long Kentucky's GOP Senate candidate, Rand Paul, contended that businesses should be allowed to practice racial discrimination?
Women degraded

Do women notice that the first female speaker of the U.S. House, Nancy Pelosi, is personally vilified in ways none of her modern male predecessors has been? How do they feel about their local Republican congressional candidate, Todd Lally, saying that he doesn't believe women still face discrimination and harassment in the workplace?

What can be on the minds of gay groups that advocate staying home on Election Day to punish Mr. Obama for not yet repealing the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy? In Louisville, such a boycott would aid Republican mayoral candidate Hal Heiner, who voted against the “Fairness” ordinance barring anti-gay discrimination and contributed $20,000 of his own money to the campaign to attach a prohibition of gay marriage to the Kentucky Constitution.

Again, this is likely to be a year of more setbacks than triumphs for candidates and voters with such concerns. But these are battles that will continue. Being heard, now and beyond, is critically important to the prospects for long-range success. When the polls open Tuesday, the time to speak up will have arrived.