has it been two years already?

"I, Ayla Zachary, a qualified and registered elector of the _4th_ precinct in the township of _____ or village of Spring Lake or of the _____ ward of the city of _____, in the county of Ottawa and state of Michigan, apply for an official ballot, or ballots, to be voted by me at the election or elections as requested in this application."
-from my absentee ballot application

I've decided to vote in the upcoming midterm election.

Politics is something that I'm always, theoretically, interested in. (Let's deconstruct that sentence! Two possible meanings: "In theory, I am always interested in politics" or "I am always interested in political theory." Yes. Both are true.) However, due to the nature of my life and of myself, that interest tends to slip firmly into the theoretical and away from the practical most of the time. I read the news, but not every day; my first resource tends to be BBC News, and on any given day I'm most likely to have an Irish or EU news story brought to my attention. Most of the time I spend in front of the computer is during my work day, when reading news websites feels like procrastination and is something I try not to do. Also, I don't have a television, so I'm not going to stumble onto it that way.

This means that my attention to and knowledge of U.S. politics tends to be really lacking these days. For example, with the upcoming midterms, I didn't even realize that Michigan was having a gubernatorial* election! It didn't occur to me that Governor Jennifer Granholm's term limit would be approaching. Then, this week, I suddenly realized what is at stake in this election-- in addition to my home state's chief executive position, there's the risk of the Democrats losing the majority in Congress. And suddenly I became interested to the point of distraction in the current American political situation, obsessively consuming analyses about what's been going on in the U.S.A. for the past year.

This happened before the last election, too-- for the month leading up to the November '08 Presidential election, I was passionate about reading the news every day. Then Obama won, and my interest waned again... it was rekindled a little when he took office in January '09, but then slipped again. I'm sure after this election is over when Republicans take control of Congress I'll go back to my normal state of self-absorption and mild disillusionment. But right now, voting in the midterm election seems like the most important thing I can do, as an adult citizen of the world.






*To tie into a recent post here, I'd like to point out that truly excellent word. Let's all say it together: GUBERNATORIAL. Fantastic.