In Pennsylvania, Voting Seniors Will Always Win in Politics

Pittsburgh, Pa. -- Politics is such a divisive subject that by tradition it is improper to discuss in polite society. There are still some things about politics that most people agree about - The relief when elections are over, because the commercials, especially the attack ads, stop cluttering up the air waves. We will not get "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," unless we pay for it. Every politician makes promises that can't be kept either because of lack of cooperation, lack of funding, or lack of feasibility.

Pennsylvania is a difficult state to control, because with four distinct urban centers and lots of rural areas, not much will please all of the voters. The weather isn't even the same so how could the politics be the same. Although normally a "blue state" there are serious pockets of "red state" hiding in different parts of the state. Issues that are important in Erie are often of little import in Philadelphia. Harrisburg is a long distance from Pittsburgh. What works in one section of the state just doesn't work in another.

As Pittsburgh developed, different nationalities congregated in different valleys or on different hills. This led to a lot of diverse neighborhoods. When you add that into the number of universities,hospitals and the financial institutions in Pittsburgh, you have a broad range of people. Exposure to a wide range of education, employment, religion, income and heritage, have lead to fairly tolerant attitudes. Appealing to that variety means that successful politicians have to have a broad appeal. Except that they don't. They only have to appeal to one group.

I know this because the ladies at my polling place talked me into running for Majority Inspector of Elections. I thought that one of them was retiring but to my surprise they all retired together. I have been voting with those ladies for over twenty years. Everyone thought they were in the wrong place when they came to vote. I have only worked at one primary but what I learned was interesting.

Foreign to me was asking people which party they belonged to. Only members of a political party had a reason to vote, since there were no issues on the ballot. Few people seem to realize that the Primary is far more important than the election in the fall. If you don't choose a good candidate in the spring, you may lose in the fall. So I know it is really important to vote in the spring. I certainly learned a lot about the voters in my district and I imagine that it is not very differnt all over the country.

Only 156 people of over 750 registered voters, came to vote. I know that some people registered last year in order to vote for or against Obama. I know that people are only removed from the list if they have not voted in seven years. If you factor some of that out still maybe only a quarter of those eligible to vote did so. Another thing I noticed was that there were only three or four people that voted who were under thirty. The majority of the voters were over sixty. Many were way over.

So the writers of "West Wing" were right. Social Security can't be touched. Older people don't have to worry at all about young people taking over the country. Until they learn to vote, they won't. Politicians are smart enough to know who votes and will appeal to them. Was it any wonder that the leading Democrats tried to discourage Mr. Sestak from running against Mr. Spector? Who do you think would appeal to more senior citizens? Senior citizens interests take priority in Washington, because Senior citizens vote. The worst part was that just when we thought we were back to all Steelers all the time on the news, we still had to put up with politicians calling each other names.

I know that getting the right to vote was difficult for the black man , but don't think that that included the black woman. She had to wait even longer. When I think about what women went through for us to get the right to vote, I am appalled by the young women who didn't vote. Maybe the only way to get people to vote is to station a Steeler at all the polls. Living in Pittsburgh is like no other place in the world.