Death or democracy?

After last week's midterm elections, I have the unmistakable feeling that the votes of common Americans like you and me just don't count. I know that seems heretical, especially in this time of "Go America!"-isms, but I just can't shake the feeling that it's true. Now, I'm not just whining because my team -- the liberal Democrats -- lost horribly, although it probably motivated me to write this. Whether Republican, Democrat or Independent, most people have the same feeling tucked away in the back of their heads: You're not needed anymore to run this government. \nPeople know. Their inability to reach the ears and affect the arms of politicians is drastically increasing in the past few generations. Special interest groups and major corporations are replacing the common person as a politician's constituents. According to the Minnesota Daily Online, in 1996, the amount of "soft" money given by special interest groups had risen to more than $650 million, compared to only $192 million in 1980. No single, honest voter can keep up with the powers of big business, so why even try? Last Tuesday, elections officials at Willkie reported that only 16 people had come there to vote. Now, does that mean students living in Willkie are too lazy or too apathetic to even walk down a flight of steps to vote? Or would it rather be that they know their one vote isn't nearly as important as that of Enron or another large corporation?\nThe will of the people is sometimes hard to gauge, especially if politicians decide to tweak it for their own good. First, to show, I'll start with the example of former Republican, now Independent senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Saint to some, sinner to others, when Jeffords switched his allegiance in 2001, he managed to set off a shockwave through the Senate. Just by declaring he was no longer a member of the G.O.P., Democrats gained the majority. \nBut good as this may sound to a Democratic Party cheerleader, it is sad that Jeffords' switch did ignore the will of those people who put him into office. Republican voters in Vermont were upset, as they had every right to be. They wanted Jeffords to do one job, instead he did another. \nAgainst the will of the people brings us to my easiest target yet: George W. Bush. He has suffered from the stigma of ignoring the common people ever since before he came into office. \nFrom the Miami Herald in 2000: "The review found that the result would have been different if every board in every county had examined every undervote … under the most inclusive standard, Gore would have won by 393 votes …"\nThat's right, and you always knew that it was the truth. Had the Supreme Court not stopped the recount for Miami-Dade county in 2000, we'd currently be looking at Gore's plans on war with Iraq. This isn't some liberal lie. It has been proven that, as a fact, Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush in Florida, yet the will of the people was ignored. Big political players stuck their hands in and took the power of election away from the people. No matter what party you're a member of, you have to admit that the 2000 election no longer had anything to do with the will of the people.\nThe choice of who leads us is no longer in our hands. Politicians and the rich are taking over the role of choosing our leaders. Is this the death of democracy? I wouldn't know, because my vote doesn't count.