Politics

It would seem that the "happening upon" the Obama rally at Columbus Circle last Saturday was to be a thread throughout the week. Not surprising given that Tuesday was Super Tuesday.
It began for us as this image shows with Margie talking with the young woman at the Women for Obama Rally. Basically we were trying to work out where he was- obviously not in NYC.
However the places in which I was privy to the discussion of politics, and more importantly the discussion of the endorsement of presidential candidates, were many and varied. In some schools teachers began discussions about what was happening and what they thought about it all. Usually ignoring me and talking about all they had heard and seen.
Today in philosophy one of the participants (Tom) raised the political situation in the US as an example of a country coming out of waking sleep into awareness. When we had our break a small group of us continued the discussion with Tom. One young woman in the group was saying that she was the only person in her workplace that had actually voted in the primaries and that she couldn't understand why people weren't bothering to exercise their right to vote. She continued on to say that she agreed with Tom and that more than ever before she felt that people were talking about the election. For the first time ever she sat up and watched the debates and then the count on Tuesday night (for two to three hours) something she hasn't done before. Another woman agreed with her that she was watching it all on TV for the first time and that tonight she would be watching the next primaries count.
Then another woman said that she was also watching it all but it is all so very confusing- "Why don't they just have a popular vote?" My comment was that perhaps the popular vote would leave it all more open to (greater?)corruption- the person who is able to buy the most votes or threatens the most or whatever, is the person who becomes president.
The discussion then drifted to the events in Florida eight years ago and the general consensus was that how wrong it was for the Supreme Court to rule in the manner it did.
An earlier encounter about the election I had in the week was in Starbucks (of all places) while I was getting my lunch on my way to work one young woman was talking with the young man behind the counter about the election and the vote for Hillary Clinton. It appeared that they were struggling with the way in which votes are counted and how could Obama claim certain areas when Hillary Clinton was within such close range of his numbers.
And so the puzzlement over the electoral processes here continue!