Student gets voter angst

Vote. You must vote. It is your right. It is your responsibility. Uphold democracy by taking part. Blah blah blah, vote, blah blah.

Everyone is nagging me about my responsibility on election day. MTV harangues me while I'm waiting for Kennedy to say something witty. Posters accost me with hip, catchy slogans like "Your Vote is Your Voice." Public service announcements come at me from every conceivable medium.

The problem is that while there seems to be a lot to vote against this year, there doesn't seem to be much on the ballot to vote for.

Take the candidates for governor. Casting a vote for Pete Wilson isn't even an option. His stands on Propositions 187 and 184, the so-called "Save Our State" and "Three Strikes" bills, in concert with his repeated, ah ... mistreatment of public education, ensure that I could never, in good conscience, vote for him.

Which should leave me with a fairly simple choice. Vote for Kathleen Brown, right? Right.

So why do I feel so queasy about the prospect of pulling the lever for Brown? Is it that she and fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein seem to have consciously added the element of gender to their campaign; hence the slogan, "Throw the guys out"? What would the reaction be to a Republican slogan along the lines of "Nix on the Chicks?"

And what of Brown's tacky use of her daughter's rape to bolster her (obligatory in this year's races) tough on crime stance? What does it say that Brown is willing to exploit something as private as the rape of her daughter in order to gain public office?

I can't vote for Brown without feeling slimy. And I can't vote for Wilson without feeling like a dupe. I'm stuck.

But at there are other options. Namely, Green or Libertarian party candidates.

In the case of the ballot measures, I can only vote yes or no. And yet, here again, there seem to be very few good choices.

Proposition 187, for example, seems a simple choice at first. It has no long-term goal. It will prove too expensive even if it does accomplish its short-term goals. And many legal experts have said that it will eventually prove unconstitutional. Even the bill's backers acknowledge that the primary aim of the bill is to "send a message to Washington."

This is like letting someone know you're mad at them by shooting yourself in the foot. Brilliant.

The initiative's main detractors, 70,000 of whom marched in Los Angeles earlier this year, seem to be mainly Latino groups with nationalistic interests. The La Raza Student Organization has been one of the campus groups most active against Prop. 187. The bill seems to be a handy nationalist rallying point.

I am always suspicious of nationalist approaches to political issues. Marches against Prop. 187 in which huge Mexican flags are displayed, or those in which people displaying American flags are attacked, lend credence to the arguments of the measure's most militant supporters.

When those who I would typically side with on political issues alienate me by turning elections into racial or gender referendums, I don't know where to turn. The feeling I want to carry from the voting booth is that of the proud participant, not of the culpable sucker.