Opinion: Personality, Party, or Performance: How do You Vote?

It’s election season again, and roughly fifty percent of the people will not bother to vote in November. It’s even worse when you consider primary elections. 

Why is that? IMHO, it has more to do with those who do show up. Than it does with who the candidate is.
 

Sounds crazy, but it all centers around the three P’s, Personality, Party, and Performance. 
 

Ask your average voter why they voted for someone, and you get one of the following.

You know, Jack Hammer went to the same High School I did, his father owns the pizza place on the corner, or we go to the same church.
 

Or one of my personal favorites. He knocked on my door and asked me to vote for him. 
 

Then comes the party people; he comes to our meetings now and again. He even listens to me when I talk to him. In Bay County, that is somewhat of a rarity, but it shouldn’t be the gold standard.

Now imagine any of these personality or party voters talking with a prospective performance voter. Who thinks it is all a waste of time because they see these people defending the indefensible. 
 

I assume it goes something like this. 
 

Mr. P2: Hey, you really need to vote for our guy. He is in the right party; he coaches Little League, and he is nice to old people. 

Mr. Performance: Really, let’s start with the last one. You mean the same guy who voted to give commercial developers a ninety-seven percent tax cut? Ensuring that special assessment taxes go on forever. 
 

Which causes elderly people on a fixed income to have to choose between staying in their dream home or buying their medicine? 
 

You say he is also a member of your party, right? I thought your party believed in smaller government. Yet you are asking me to vote for someone who wants to revive a failed relic of the U.S.S.R., e.g., public transportation. 
 

That will end up soaking the residents of PCB and Bay County for tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. When all we really need is some outside-the-box thinking. 

Mr. P2: Ok, you tell me how you fix the traffic problem in season. Mr., I don’t even vote. 
 

Mr. Performance: Simple, instead of buying a fleet of “autonomous” vehicles. How about we either use the Bay Way buses that are being sidelined (failed system close by) or our school buses. 

Mr. P2: And just how would that work? 
 

Mr. Performance: We only need relief between 3 pm and 9 pm in season. Run either at thirty-minute intervals from Laketown to the traffic circle on Hwy 79.
 

With the school buses, you create some nostalgia for parents and children alike, and you already have the buses and the drivers who are off during the summer. Problem solved, and it didn’t cost a hundred million dollars. 
 

Mr. P2: That all sounds good, but I am sticking with my guy. 
 

Mr. Performance: Color me surprised, and I am guessing you are still confused as to why I don’t bother to vote.