Occasionally a commenter on Tales of Two Cities will feel compelled to share their opinion that local blogs such as this have little to no influence on local politics. They’ll point to something like Linda Odums defeat in last weekends Columbia Council race to make their point since I openly supported Linda in her challenge to unseat Phil Kirsch. That view tends to miss the point.
I really don’t believe or expect that the people who visit here will accept every viewpoint or position I espouse. That’s really not the mission of this blog, my column in The Business Monthly, or my podcast on HoCoMoJo. My mission is simply to raise awareness of the local issues. I believe that local politics impact our daily lives as much as, if not more than, national politics yet when I talk to folks I am often surprised about how little they know about the actual community they live in. Even the Wilde Lake election, which was described in the press as “hotly contested,” attracted only around 10% of the eligible voters in that village.
Anytime local bloggers succeed in getting more people involved in the conversation about the issues of our community we have influenced the outcome in some way and that, I believe, is a very good thing.
F ³: Competitions: Are We Winning Yet?
2 hours ago
5 comments:
I endorsed John Boyle for Village Board and he won. Cause - Effect. No outside influences played any part in that election.
Many times it is rational to be uninformed. When the cost of learning about the issues is high and your ability to influence those issues is low, of course many people will choose to be ingorant.
People who read the blogs are the most informed people out there.
Thanks, WB, for all you do to make learning about the issues interesting!
Well said.
If FM's theory is accurate, then the cost of learning about local politics is very very high because the impact is much greater when voting in smaller and smaller elections.
The highest turnout is for elections in which individual voters have the least impact.
Santos says it was 24%, not 10%.
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