Then I
think about Quaide Williams.
Quaide is a
U.S. citizen who lives in Germany. Two years ago, Quaide, inspired by Republican
Sarah Palin and her campaign bus, started planning a 6-week, trans-Europe voter
registration bus tour to register Americans who live in Europe for absentee ballots
in the 2012 election.
U.S.
citizens who vote from abroad are an overlooked but increasingly important block
of voters. In the 2008 U.S. senate race in Minnesota, for example, Al Franken
won the seat by 312 votes. This is fewer than the total number of absentee
ballots received in Minnesota during that election. And according to an article
in The Huffington Post, if the number of U.S. citizens who live aboard were a state, it would
be the 18th largest in the U.S.
Although
the tour was organized in cooperation with Democrats Abroad, Quaide and his fellow passengers, Americans who live elsewhere in
Europe and who join him for a few days at a time, will help register any U.S.
citizen who wants to vote regardless of party affiliation. Why? Probably because they, like me, believe voting
is essential for a healthy robust democracy. Of course, they would prefer to register
more Democrats than Republicans, but they understand that the act of voting is
important in itself.
The bus
tour is essentially self-financed, and driver and riders rely on members of Democrats
Abroad to house and feed them as they travel from city to city. Last Saturday,
following a busy afternoon in Stockholm, Quaide and his “roadies” made a quick
stop in Västerås, a city near me. I greeted them with coffee – this is Sweden
after all – and a canister of homemade peanut butter cookies while they went
into action. We received local media coverage and even registered a couple of voters. An hour and a half later, at 6:00 PM, Quaide
and his team hit the road again for a 5½-hour drive to Oslo. The bus tour will
visit 27 cities in 13 countries.
Unless the
PACs and deep pocket donors are literally buying votes, it’s still flesh and blood
individuals – I can’t say “people” for legal reasons – who will decide this
election. And it’s important to remember that the biggest spender doesn't always win.
How do you counter the influence of big money in an election? Vote by vote, with dedicated volunteers and an occasional homemade cookie.
© 2012 Kvick Thoughts. All rights
reserved.
