OUR OPINION: Hang Our Heads In Shame

Just a little over 7% came out to vote primary day. Those were some of the supervoters who usually don’t miss a primary, committee people and their families, and maybe a few others who just stumbled into the polls on their way to God knows where.

It was enough to consign the banner “Democracy In Action” to the junk pile.

We are all to blame. But the biggest share of the responsibility goes to the television media. They enjoy mass audiences every day and night. Minus the ads for which they charge big bucks, of which were few this primary, there was little or no incentive for them to cover or promote interest in the primary race.

If you tuned into their combined news coverage – what they squeezed in between “tornado talk” – you would have been hard pressed to discover there was an election campaign on Tuesday. Their talking heads, in any event, would have been ill-equipped, save one or two, to even comprehend what was at stake in the primary.

For instance, had they whipped up voter interest, Philadelphia could have had the possibility of handing Judge Joe Waters a victory in his bid to win for Philadelphia County rare representation on the all-important Superior Court.

God bless us all as we continue our plunge into the dark ages of diminished study of civics in our schools and ever-declining voter interest and involvement.

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