Why I Didn't Vote on Tuesday

By GREGORY J. RUMMO
NOVEMBER 10, 2005

...Republicans have all but thrown in the towel in New Jersey by clinging to the notion that for one of their own to win the gubernatorial race, he or she must be “Democrat Light.”

           It’s Election Day and I’m watching my wife and two daughters play on the swings in our backyard. It’s a sunny, beautiful afternoon and the thermometer tells me it’s 61 degrees outside. But the one stuck in my ear is reading 101 and I’m feeling weak and achy.

            But fighting off the ill effects of an intestinal bug is not the reason I didn’t make it to the polls today. I’m feeling weak and achy—or maybe “sick and tired” is a better way to encapsulate the way I feel—for another reason.

            I voted already—not by absentee ballot in this election—but back in June in the Republican primary when Doug Forrester defeated six other contenders for the chance to lose against John Corzine in our very blue state.

            Am I sounding bitter or cynical? –Read on. 

            My guy, Bret Schundler, lost. And along with that loss went much that should differentiate Republicans from Democrats.

             Republicans have all but thrown in the towel in this state by clinging to the notion that for one of their own to win the gubernatorial race, he or she must be “Democrat Light.”

            Whitman squeaked in by the skin of her teeth in 1993, beating the state’s incumbent governor, Jim Florio, by a mere 26,000 votes. Florio was a governor who never saw a tax increase he didn’t like and the state’s voters saw a chance to see their tax bills go down. Four years later, in another déjà vu stunner, she barely beat Jim McGreevy by less than 25,000 votes. In that year, the pundits claimed it was McGreevey’s support of needle exchange programs that did him in.

            In hindsight, that was mere political spin. McGreevey resurfaced in 2001, winning the gubernatorial race. In what has been described as the most corrupt administration in state politics, he wreaked havoc across the Garden State. Yet that corruption could not dissuade voters from throwing the Democrats out of office this year.  

            Credit Governor Codey’s respectable job of washing the ring of McGreevey from the state’s bath tub (and voters having short memories.) But beyond that, in this year’s race, there was little to differentiate John Corzine from Doug Forrester. Both promised to cut property taxes. Both are pro-choice. Both will fund stem-cell research.

            As a Christian with deep convictions about the right to life, I long ago decided I would never vote for any candidate that supported abortion or any other procedure that prematurely ends the life of another innocent human being.

            I realize there are consequences to my actions. If multiplied throughout the electorate, it could result in the less desirable candidate winning by default.

            And maybe that’s what happened on Tuesday. Maybe my thoughts here are not from a lone voice “crying in the wilderness.” Maybe they reflect the sentiment of many disgusted New Jerseyans who stayed home like I did.

            Think back for a moment to the 2004 general election. The most often debated issue that arose subsequent to Bush’s victory over John Kerry was the role played by evangelical Christians who turned out in droves. The media freaked out, characterized it as a red-blue divide in America, and it was all we heard and read about; ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

            If other Republican voters who take their faith seriously were to voice their discontent with the Republican party’s notion that in order to win elections it must float “Democrat Light” candidates and simply refused to vote robotically for the candidate with the R next to his name, maybe the GOP would finally get the message, hopefully in time before it nominates someone like the pro-choice Rudi Giuliani to run against Hillary Clinton in 2008. 

            I take my civic duty on Election Day seriously. It pained me not to vote on Tuesday. But by not voting, and having the opportunity to share with you here in print the reason why, I think I may be performing something more important.

            My faith trumps my politics. I am first called to “do justly,” and to not simply vote for a candidate that I characterize as the lesser of two evils regardless of the political outcome that decision causes.