<\/p>\n

The enthusiasm gap that has bedeviled Democrats has now morphed into a volcanic eruption of enthusiasm. Here in California, not only are volunteers swarming the state to turn out voters, so many candidates are running in our Top-Two primary that there’s a risk they’ll split the vote and ensure Republican victory in November. Unforced errors and circular firing squads–The Democratic Party’s specialty.<\/p>\n

To make sense of this hot mess, a group of us gathered last week to go over the ballot. We are a group keenly interested in politics, and pride ourselves on being well-informed and civically engaged. Here is a sample of our thoughtful decision-making process:<\/p>\n

“Our kids were on the same soccer team, and he seems like a nice guy.”<\/p>\n

“She donated a kidney to her sister.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t like his hair.” (This last one was from me, critiquing Gavin Newsom’s coiffure. At least I was fine with Hillary’s hair.)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What does it portend for our democracy when you can’t distinguish between our group, low-information voters, and a bunch of chimpanzees throwing darts at a sample ballot? And even if we knew who we wanted to vote for, it was nearly impossible to find the right name: 27 people are running for governor, and 32 for U.S. Senator!<\/p>\n

Actually, I did do a little research. The more I learned, the more indecisive I became. “I not only lack the courage of my convictions,” I lamented to our host. “I lack convictions!”<\/p>\n

As usual, Auto-Correct had the last word: When I emailed the above photo to myself from my iPhone, my subject line–“Gotv”-<\/em>-appeared as “Gotcha.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s hope tomorrow’s election doesn’t turn into the worst kind of “Gotcha.” And although possibly my persuasive skills leave something to be desired, be sure to get out and vote.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The enthusiasm gap that has bedeviled Democrats has now morphed into a volcanic eruption of enthusiasm. Here in California, not only are volunteers swarming the state to turn out voters, so many candidates are running in our Top-Two primary that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Democracy in Action: Getting Through the Vote","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[266,645],"class_list":["post-2104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-voting","tag-californias-primary-election-2018-gotv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2F8Ch-xW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}