Leaders and Followers

I wrote this on the Edwards campaign blog on October 28 2003:

A few weeks back, when asked about Arnold's chances in the CA recall, Bush said "I am a follower of politics".... FOLLOWER!!!!!! If he's a follower, who's the leader? I thought that was President's job description! But, the worse thing is that he's better in this respect than most citizens. A huge percentage of voters cannot name a single candidate yet. They are not even followers. All the debates to date had by far the worst ratings for the timeslot. Activity on blogs is very high and often heated, we watch everything we can find about the campaigns, read print and online articles, listen to NPR, so we have an illusion that there is a lot of passion going around. But we are such a puny minority. Most people don't give a damn. Trying to talk to people is so painful, and such an uphill battle. Last night: "Are you following the presidential campigns this year?" "No" "Why not?" "Well, I don't know anything about it" "Why don't you get informed? It is important for your future." "Well, I don't really have time for it", said she and went to order the 7th beer at the bar.... Another one (happenned today, transcribed to the best of my memory): "Are you following the campaigns?" "No, I do not care for politics" "Why not" "They are all the same. The top 1% have all the money" "Well, the guy in the White House right now is making it so. Don't you think he needs to be replaced?" "By whom? Our sleazeball Edwards? Come on..." Grrrrowwwllllll! In the end we agreed to disagree....