The calls come to Project Vote Smart in a steady stream, from New York and New Mexico, from California and Connecticut, from the confused in every corner of the land.
Who is my congressman, they ask. How can I reach him? How do I register to vote? Who is running for office? Where do they stand on the issues?
Some know exactly what to ask. But others, says 21-year-old volunteer Kelly Flanagan, "have a very vague idea of what they want" -- they are stumbling through the labyrinth of American democracy without a map. There are many of those people, and come November, they will help choose the next leader of the most powerful country on the planet.
They are ignorant though they are awash with information -- on television and radio, in print and on the Internet. They are ill-informed because they do not have the time or inclination to learn, or misinformed because they are at the mercy of spinmeisters.
"We're not well informed, and a lot of that is our fault," says Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York. It would be an overstatement to paint America as a confederacy of dunces; there are those who say we may not be a nation of civic superstars, but we know enough to get by. And in a crisis -- in wartime or economic hard times -- voters pay more attention, and are better informed, experts say.
Preconceived notions can derail a citizen's judgment. Cass Sunstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, says the Internet can keep minds closed instead of opening them; people who previously had to wade through newspapers that offered opposing points of view now turn to Web sites or television channels that conform with their own beliefs.
Fourteen years ago, Richard Kimball -- a failed candidate for US Senate from Arizona -- established Project Vote Smart. The goal was to dispense nonpartisan voter information.
Today, 30 staffers and 40 interns work at the project's headquarters at the Great Divide Ranch in Montana. But gigabytes of voting records, campaign speeches and finance records are no match for the millions of dollars spent by candidates to burnish their image, attack their opponents and spin their stands on the issues.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not