Democracy in action, 2006 (#229, Topic P)

Our retirement community, with some 10,000 senior citizens in residence, is said to constitute a powerful voting bloc. Thus, residents began to receive, months earlier during the primary season, flyers and recorded telephone messages touting various candidates. Now that the primary season is over but the voting season is rapidly upon us, our community community's Center for Lifelong Learning and the League of Women Voters co-sponsored a public forum, "Big Decisions of 2006," this afternoon. I attended it out of curiosity. The forum featured a Democratic representative (from Maryland's State Senate), and a Republican representative (from Montgomery County's Republican Central Committee), with a former foreign correspondent, now a resident at our community, as the moderator. Questions were to be in written form and sent to the moderator, who read selected ones for the two representatives to answer. What questions were asked? (1) Should Maryland allow slot machines? (One represenative answered it affirmatively, since states bordering on Maryland [Pennsylvania, Delaware] have them, raking in $1 million in net profit every day!) (2) Should the Inter-county connector be built? (This issue was talked about for some 50 years, and was recently resolved in favor of building it. The questioner seemed to want the issue reopened.) (3) What is the poverty-line income? (A question that by itself, in my view, is a time waster for this occasion; but it was read and a member of the audience took a stab at it.) (4) Is there too much concentration in media ownership? (The moderator took the question himself and blasted bloggers for expressing opinions, thereby squeezing newspaper reporters, who are fact-finders, out of their jobs.) (5) What should USA do as its population reaches 300 million mark? (The two representatives used this question to talk about illegal immigration.) I ask myself: Are these Big Decisions of 2006 questions? Perhaps the last two qualify. (There is an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled "400,000,000"; it favors more immigration.) I actually wrote down a question, but it was not selected: "Should minimum wage be raised? If the answer is affirmative, should it be voted upon by itself (rather than be coupled with a bill on making estate-tax reduction permanent)?" Oh, well. This is democracy in action, 2006 style.