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Date: Fri 25-Sep-1998

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Date: Fri 25-Sep-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-primary-election-turnout

Full Text:

ED INK: Tuned Out, Turned Off

The consequences of all the posturing, bobbing, weaving, and squirming going

on in Washington, D.C., these days may be more insidious than a mere affront

to our values. Regardless of where you stand on impeachment, resignation, or

the overall job performance of the President, television news is hard to

watch. It's just too much of a bad thing. The only people who seem to have any

enthusiasm for the spectacle are the media and the principals who feed them

with new material night after night. Ordinary people seem to want to tune it

out and turn it off, and nowhere were the effects of that sentiment more

evident than in last week's primary election vote.

Newtown Republicans had reason to be interested in the primary election

contest between Patricia Shea and Ed Callo, who were vying for the Republican

nomination to succeed the chastened William Varese. Mr Varese gave up his bid

for reelection under pressure from Newtown party officials following his

arrest for drunken driving and other embarrassments associated with an

incident in Bridgeport last March. Mrs Shea won the right to primary through

support of two Newtown delegates to the district nominating convention in

July. So the 1,100 registered Republicans in the 112th District in Newtown

seemed to have a lot at stake in last week's primary vote, yet just 70, or 6.3

percent, of them turned up at the polls to vote.

The turnout of local Democrats was even worse. For the primary election

between Ellen Scalettar and Susan Bysiewicz for the Democratic nomination for

secretary of the state and between Denise Nappier and Frank Lecce for state

treasurer, just 141 of the town's 3,023 registered Democrats showed up. That's

about five percent. Statewide, Democratic voters posted a record low turnout

for any Connecticut election.

November's general election will have a tremendous impact on our lives.

Virtually all the laws that affect our communities, our businesses, and our

private affairs come to us from the US Congress and the state Legislature.

This year we will elect one of our two US Senators, all our representatives in

the US House of Representatives, and all our state legislators. If we don't

like what we are seeing night after night on the news, the best way to tune it

out and turn it off will be to stay engaged and to elect people who will

change things, including the content of the nightly news. If we choose to stay

disengaged, as voters of both parties did last week, we can only expect more

of the same.

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