Voting

Why is it that people will not get out and vote?  The elections are coming up in November for governor, the senate, the house, and many other positions.  You would think that people would care enough about their state and their country to go and vote for who they think is the best person.  But most of the people I have talked to are not even bothering to vote.  And even if they are voting, they are doing so blindly.  I'm surronded by the type of people who would vote straight ticket because they think that if they are Republican or if they are Democrat, they must only vote for the candidates in their party.  But this is so frustrating!  Political parties are such a stupid idea in my opinion, especially when only two main ones exist.  People should be looking at the issues and where each person stands on the issues that are most important to them instead of which party they are affiliated with.  We currently have a governor who makes stupid decisions (like building a tollway all the way across the state of Texas) and a governor who was supposed to give the lottery money to our education, but instead we do not know where it went.  Yet so many people are still going to vote for him just because he is Republican.  It is times like this that we need people like Kinky Friedman or Carol Strayhorn, who are both Indepedent, to shake things up a little.  Perry has long been a disappointment to our state and I will be disappointed if he is elected governor again.  It will just further prove that people aren't looking at the issues or aren't even looking at the behavior of the politicans, but are merely voting based on political affiliation.