What if they gave an election and nobody came?t ttThe question reads like a bumper sticker, but it’s getting increasingly serious. If democracy really does depend on an informed and involved electorate, the growing number of folks who are leaving government to others comprise an alarming statistic. Can the country long preserve its principles if its essence is eroded by apathy and indifference?

In February, Maine’s Democratic Party held its biennial caucuses – gatherings in nearly every community to elect municipal officers and delegates to the state convention, sign nominating petitions for candidates, and talk about the issues that most concern them. In a system that prides itself on being of, by and for the people, the caucuses are the bedrock.

And it doesn’t work. Most people do not attend caucuses and many of us who do have long since become eligible for our AARP cards. It’s impossible to argue that the typical caucus represents even the party membership, let alone the electorate at large.

Nationally, only about half of those eligible to vote bother to show up at the polls, and that’s in a presidential year. Even in Maine, proud of our nation-leading voter turnout, one third of those who could vote choose not to.

In primaries the record is far worse. Maine holds its primary this year on June 11. Do you know where your candidates are?

Is it unfair to pick on politics? After all, as Robert Putnam documents in Bowling Alone, Americans are avoiding nearly all forms of social involvement – parent-teacher organizations, service clubs, business and professional associations, book-reading groups, churches of almost all faiths, and, yes, bowling leagues. We have become a nation of self-isolated individuals, united more by vicarious sports and entertainment events than by shared civic or social interaction.

Cynicism? Relative affluence? Indifference? Too busy? Too many channels? Unlike bowling, the answer matters in politics. Whatever the causes, in a form of government that depends on an informed electorate, we seem to have a body politic that’s tuned out We have become a society in which we “let George do it.”

Moreover, many people seem to feel that their vote doesn’t count and that it doesn’t much matter who wins anyway.

The agonizing Florida recount should have dispelled forever the notion that one vote doesn’t matter. And those who exercise their franchise in Maine’s primaries will find that their vote will be powerful, indeed. In contested primaries, victories will be measured in identifiable hundreds, not unfathomable millions. And it does matter who wins.

Focusing only on two Maine issues, look at what the next Legislature must address. Heading the list is the latest fiscal crisis – how to slap enough Band-Aids on to get through the short term and how to overhaul the state and local tax system so that we do not face an endless series of steep ups and plunging downs.

As the Bangor Daily News editorialized on May 14, “Maine’s tax system is a relic of the past industrial age, relying too heavily on property and business-equipment taxes.” It’s time to relieve property owners (except for second homes), lower income tax rates, and broaden the sales tax so that Maine captures more of that revenue source from visitors. And why not extend the sales tax to services, particularly those that involve purely discretionary expenditures? The goal is both a fair system and one that does not produce the huge swings in revenues of the recent past.

If the fiscal crisis is numero uno, the health care/health insurance mess is a clear and close second. Because of an accident of history we Americans leave the provision of health insurance to business and industry. We are the only industrialized nation in the world to have this arrangement and it’s not up to the task. Rates are soaring, and neither Maine’s small businesses nor Maine people can afford the increases. Oddly enough, the insurance companies are having a tough time, too, with firms abandoning the state. We are running a race between “too expensive” and “not available,” and there will be no winners.

Cannot Americans learn from the experience of others? Good health is too important to leave to the profit motive, and government programs (Medicare, for example) have proved to be far more efficient than dealing with multiple insurance companies. Cultural changes are needed, too, so that better nutrition, exercise, and personal habits prevent diabetes and other diseases, but the bottom line is universal, affordable health care paid for through government.

Can Maine create such a single-payer system all by itself? Certainly a nationwide program would be better in every respect, but Maine perhaps could serve as a pilot for the country. Or if Maine alone is not big enough, how about northern New England? Dr. Dan Rissi, acting CEO at Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, believes a trial run in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont could well point the way for the United States as a whole.

There’s much more, of course. In particular, we must find effective ways to foster economic development in northern and eastern Maine, with part of the answer being greater investment in education and in research and development. There’s much we don’t know about creating economic vitality, but we do know that education means more and better jobs. The more education a person has, the higher income she or he earns. It really is as simple as that.

On the local level as well as the national, we can’t afford to let George do it. We need to get involved – as voters, as volunteers, as writers of letters to the editor, as members of planning boards and school committees, as citizens we the people is us.

Kent Price, of Orland, is a Democratic candidate for the Maine House of Representatives in District 128.