"Virginia Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Ralph Northam omitted any mention of Justin Fairfax, the party’s African American candidate for lieutenant governor..."

"... from about a thousand pieces of campaign literature, a move Fairfax called a 'mistake' and that has stoked tensions within the Democratic ticket and threatens to alienate African American voters three weeks before Election Day. The palm cards with photos of Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring (D) were produced for canvassers with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which asked that Fairfax be excluded because it did not endorse him. Fairfax has spoken critically of two proposed natural gas pipelines that the union supports."

WaPo reports.

It's a "mistake" only in the sense that what they did completely intentionally has received attention and made them look bad. And do you even believe the explanation for why they did it? These were palm cards with photos. I would guess that the party is afraid that black people who see a photo of a black face will decide that's the one to vote for.

ADDED: I'm misreading this, so my guess there is wrong. Northam is the only Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. So the Democrats can't be accused of trying to redirect black voters to a white candidate. They may be trying to hide the black candidate from voters who don't like or are skeptical of black candidates, but I'm willing to believe the union's argument: they don't like his position on pipelines and didn't mind risking alienating black people (until it got too much attention).

IN THE COMMENTS: cubanbob said:

So the Democrats are hiding the candidate the union rank and file would be against since he is against their interests. That's the problem for the Democrats; too many interest groups to placate and many of them at cross purposes.

The solution to the problem of low turnout is to see it as a nonproblem.

WaPo's Dan Balz bawls about low turnout in "Everyone says turnout is key. So why does it keep going down?"

Boring!

I don't mean Balz is boring, though, of course, he is.

I mean hooray for boredom in politics.

It's healthy. These people who are incessantly trying to excite us about politics should feel horribly frustrated by our boredom. Our nonresponsiveness to their proddings and ticklings is the best thing we've got. No amount of money spent on advertising can move us. We've seen it all, and we've got lives to live.

Some people don't arrive at enough of an opinion to want to add their tiny bit of weight to one side as their fellow citizens determine which candidate wins. Their nonparticipation has meaning that deserves respect. There are innumerable reasons for nonparticipation, and one should not presume that the abstainers are lazy or numb. They may defer to the opinions of others. They may dislike all the candidates. They may think the candidates are similar enough that it's not worth putting time into teasing out the differences. They may have other things to do with that time. Better things.

We were talking about boredom in politics yesterday in this post about Hillary. Buzzfeed's Ben Smith had been musing about whether Hillary! could get women jazzed up about women!!! and in lust for seeing a — first!!!! — Woman President. And I said:

I'm sick of inspiration and claims of historiosity. We should all be perfectly jaded by now. Inoculated. It's healthful and wholesome. And so what if watching the campaign day by day is "a boring, grinding affair"? 

The quoted words were Smith's.

That's a problem for Smith, running his buzz-dependent website, but it's a nonproblem for the rest of us. Think of the time you can save not reading the websites that try to make something out of the presidential campaign every damned day. What will you do with all that time? Instead of thinking about how what happened in the last hour might be history, you could, for example, read history. May I recommend the Amity Shlaes biography of Calvin Coolidge?

Coolidge was boring. Good boring. Let's be boring for a change. I want a boring President. Stop trying to excite me.

In the comments, Freeman Hunt wrote:

I have paid much attention to these elections in the past, and I see no difference that my attention has made. I therefore plan to devote very little attention to this election until it is time to vote. At that time, I will select the most boring, competent person who aligns with what I'd like to see done.

The End.

I've started a new tag: I'm for Boring. Like Freeman, I do vote, but I'm not voting because someone has excited me, and I don't think I ever have, now that I think of it. And I don't want other people to get excited. If that means they don't even vote, I respect that. Thanks for not getting excited and impulse voting. Politics should be boring. I want the government to be boring.

In the comments yesterday, cubanbob said:

I could be wrong but it seems you are hoping for Scott Walker for president. No one ever called him Mister Excitement and he does appear to be reasonably competent and law abiding....

And I said:

Walker excited the hell out of people around here.

I think Romney is nicely boring. Bring him back. That would be especially boring.

And John Althouse Cohen said...

Maybe the Democratic nominee should be someone who may not be the most exciting politician...

John linked here: