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Love
Your Vote Day: Embracing the Disenfranchised Citizen
February
14, 2004
By Teresa Van Deusen
On Saturday, February 14, 2004 get out the vote organizations
around the country will recognize Love Your Vote Day. These
groups have agreed to embrace the ideas of Love, Unity, Diversity,
and Democracy by hosting events such as Buy A Non-Voter A
Drink and college campus registration drives.
VoterVirgin and New Voters Project are proud to reach for
a goal of 10,000 new voters registered over a three day celebration
across the nation. Even in states where primaries have been
held, there are thousands of eligible voters yet to be registered.
We encourage all citizens to participate in Love Your Vote
Day by picking up a voter registration form and passing it
on to someone you know. In the spirit of this holiday, we
encourage you to set aside the issues and address the heart
of the matter: America is a passionate country, our voice
should be heard, voting says we care, please vote.
On a personal note I would like to see the progressive community
reach out to the conservative voters in your life. We are
a country polarized by extremist politics and it is time to
begin the healing. I have recently noted more vocal conservatives
dismayed by the deficit, slow job growth, and the temporary
worker proposal.
I want you to contemplate the shame most Republicans in our
world are feeling. In general, they are disenchanted, fed
up with trying to defend this administration, and losing their
defensiveness in varying degrees. Noted commentators have
written that they feel lost, not willing to support a reelection,
yet unimpressed with a Democratic candidate.
The key here is that our fellow citizens are feeling lost
and the community as a whole will be better off if we all
focus on finding common ground. Last fall the NRA and MoveOn
worked together to defeat new FCC ownership rules. If these
two groups can rally around a common cause, can we not open
our hearts to sharing a vision of recovery with our more conservative
neighbors and cousins?
Think of it this way. If the GOP was an airplane, then it
has been hijacked. Everybody thought they were flying first
class when a small, determined group of fundamentalists took
over the plane. The Republicans I know would not be sitting
passively in their seats. They would be calculating and weighing
their options and then they would take those heinous terrorists
down.
I think they are about to make their move and I am relieved.
I just hope the rest of you turn out with me to welcome them
when they get their feet back on the ground. And I don't want
to hear any of this "I told you so" business either. Give
them a hug. Ask them what they need. It pays to remember we
are all human beings just trying to get by in this world.
Maybe if we find some common ground we can work together towards
restoring our nation.
So I ask you, fellow citizens, to set aside our differences
for one day and celebrate Love Your Vote Day this Saturday,
February 14th, 2004. Pick up a voter registration form and
pass it over the fence to your neighbor. E-mail your neighborhood
net group and send them to www.votervirgin.com.
Ask your favorite waitperson, or convenience store clerk,
or the person standing in line with you at the store on Saturday,
"Are you registered to vote? Today is Love Your Vote Day and
I would love it if you voted this fall," and hand them a registration
form.
It's not a Valentine per se, but it might be just
as special to embrace a new voter this year.
Love
Your Vote Day 2004 is sponsored by:
VoterVirgin: Everybody's Doin' It In '04 teresa@votervirgin.com
New Voters Project heather@newvotersproject.org
Hip Hop Summit Action Network revyearwood@hotmail.com
And
includes recognition from:
Smackdown Your Vote, Project Democracy, and Indyvoter among
many other individual expressions of passionate voter outreach.
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