Voting: Funner Than Bingo

[Politics] Voting has not been a strong suit lately of my generation. Gen X,Y whatever you call them, I like generation "I" for ipod, iphone, i-dont-give-two-shits-about-the-world.

From the greatest generation to the progeny of the sixties, society has now arrived to us, the generation for whatever you call it, who really just stopped caring...about everything, least of all voting.

That's why I've been anxiously awaiting the election to see how the polls compared to a recent straw poll conducted at the University of Utah's Hinckley Center of Politics.

The results are interesting. For example, while today's polls showed Becker trouncing Buhler 64 to 36 percent the Hinckley straw poll shows U students narrowly giving the win to Becker at 45 to 42.

The results for the voucher issue were a little closer to the mark with election polls showing an approximate voucher defeat of 62 to 38 percent, and the Hinckley poll showing 67.99 against and 30.03 for.

The results are interesting, when compared, and speak alot to the generation difference. Yet what still concerns me is how much the actual difference matters at the polls. The Hinckley poll for example had over half of respondents describing themselves as 'very interested' in the election and over thirty percent saying they were 'somewhat interested.' These folks I am sure will go on to take active part in their community and be tomorrow's civic leaders--it's the ones that aren't interested that worry me. The uninterested, unseen majority of apathetics who's not caring might give tacit support to the whole world going to hell so long as ipods get smaller, sports vehicles get bigger and Fox News keeps dishing out trademarked "fair and balanced" news.

Anyways, whatever your slant, it's worth checking out the excellent work the Hinckley folks did on the poll, which has many interesting demographic breakdowns and results for the 2008 presidential election, here. (Eric Peterson)