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Academic

: Essentially Contested America

How Democracy is Supposed to Work?

By Robert Justin Lipkin

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Today's NY Times' editorial insinuates a peculiar conception of elections in a democracy: "Having run on the idea of broad participation across society's divisions, Mr. Obama's campaign often seems to teeter on becoming a cult bm:

of personality--a feeling that the candidate and those around him do nothing to dispel. In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," on Monday, Mr. Obama's wife, Michelle, was asked if she would work to support Mrs. Clinton if she won. "d have to think about that," she replied. . . . Mrs. Obama quickly got back on her talking points, stressing party unity. But her unguarded answer was similar to what we heard from Obama supporters in e-mail messages that we received after endorsing Mrs. Clinton. Many of those readers said they would not bother to vote if Mr. Obama lost the nomination. That is not the way democracy is supposed to work." Really? But why? Refusing to vote on principle or because one vigorously opposes both candidates may be far more democratic than simply voting for the lesser of two evils. Indeed, it may even be more democratic than voting while holding one's nose. Not voting because one doesn't care about the outcome or because one is simply apolitical, never giving a elections a thought surely is anathema to the way democracy is supposed to work. The Times' conception of a democratic citizens' responsibility in elections, however, is skewed beyond imagination. Refusing to vote for a candidate who still cannot bring herself to admit she was wrong, dead wrong, in voting to authorize the war in Iraq is an act of conscience. Democracy requires conscience, not expediency.

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Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).