It’s about time office seekers start listening to nonvoters
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, November 8, 2005

OK, it’s Election Day, and here’s my plan: I’m going to dart from polling station to polling station, shaking hands, holding signs, offering coffee, making awkward eye contact. But I’m not trying to rev up the voters. I seek the attention of an even more apathetic group: politicians.

Taxes, crime, security - yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s time they start paying attention to what ”voters” really want. (And by voters I mean the 85 percent of people who didn’t cast a ballot in September’s citywide preliminary election for City Council and mayoral candidates. I call them the Ennui Bloc.)

Here are the kind of gut issues I’m talking about:

You know those chain e-mails that are always making the rounds? The ones that promise/threaten the recipient that unless she reads it all the way to the bottom, sends it to 10 people, and back to the sender, she’s preventing world peace? The candidate who’d pledge to use law enforcement powers to go after the ”friends” who send these missives would get my vote. I’ll even suggest a bumper sticker: ”Friends don’t send friends chain mail.”

I’d also turn out for someone who promises to introduce legislation outlawing grocery store employees from guilting customers out of using as many shopping bags as necessary. You buy 17 frozen turkeys, and the cashier inquires if you ”want that all in one bag?” Say ”uh, no,” and you’re made to feel like someone who belongs in George W. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency.

And why don’t the candidates ever address really heinous business tactics? Such as shops with trick (flattering) mirrors that maintain a ”store credit only” return policy?Or malls that blast ”The Little Drummer Boy” beginning Nov. 1?

And let’s not let regular citizens off the hook, either. Let’s criminalize the ”backpack smack” so common on rush-hour trolleys. From now on, that counts as assault.

These suggestions may sound small, but don’t forget, Herbert Hoover successfullytapped into the nation’s ”what’s in it for me?” mentality with his ”chicken in every pot” promise. Today’s voters don’t want a chicken anywhere near their homes, but how about a Starbucks in every hand?

Or maybe not. I’d back a candidate - heck, I’d even throw a coffee session for her - who promised us freedom from 800-calorie milkshakes posing as coffee.

Well, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.

A patriot’s work is never done.