The Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz recently made a ruling that will give poll workers the ability to turn away any voter wearing WWE-related clothing at the polls. It's a combination of the restrictions of campaigning close by to a polling place and the recent "Stand Up for WWE" that the pro-wresting company has begun so close to election day. What Bysiewicz did, though, was put many voters into a tough spot of what side is for what, making them have to subscribe to all or none of a side's stance. More importantly, though, she has also opened the door for more serious discrimination to be justified because of the now successful reason behind the ruling: that the "Stand Up for WWE" campaign is a political commercial for Linda McMahon.
Let me first say that I would not vote for former WWE CEO Linda McMahon. She wants to take out the minimum wage (like John Raese), and wants to be more of the same "party of NO" to President Obama on everything for the sole purpose of getting power back and giving said power to corporations that want things back to what they were when Bush was in office. Let's be quite honest, who would want to vote for someone who seems to be working for the Tea Party?
However, having say that, the latest move by Connecticut secretary of state Susan Bysiewicz has become a sort of wedge issue. In one hand, you have the recent "Stand Up For WWE" campaign that World Wrestling Entertainment has employed because of the Connecticut Democrat challenger, Connecticut state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and his attacks towards Linda and what he has said about the WWE peddling violent and sex to children, even though the shows are rated PG now and have seemly gone back to the goody two shoes way they were back when people like Hulk Hogan was in the company. Though the WWE has every right to defend themselves by such attacks, the campaign was started at a bad time, and has been accused of being nothing more than a campaign tool for Linda. Don't like what the Democrat challenger said about the WWE? Vote for McMahon, even if you don't like her viewpoints with where this country should go.
So I kind of understand where Bysiewicz's heart is at when she issued an order allowing poll workers to turn away anyone wearing any WWE clothing to the polls, to which the WWE is now countering in its Stand Up campaign. The reason is that it's illegal to campaign 40 ft. or less from a polling place. The idea was that any WWE clothing being worn would mean the person wearing it is pushing a campaign agenda. However, what Bysiewicz actually did was take this to a whole new level, since it now forces many people to be torn about what exactly it is they are supporting, and it opens the door for both parties to try the same tactic again in the future to keep anyone from voting.
Here's the basic problem. For one, Bysiewicz's ruling forces people to believe that the line is blurred. If you do not like her ruling and think that people should be allowed to wear whatever they want (a WWE shirt being worn, for example, does not necessarily mean you like McMahon's stance on, say, gay marriage or the aforementioned minimum wage issue), then you'd be seen as being a supporter of Linda's campaign and the GOP (and some GOP bloggers have already went full throttle on this, with Blue State Bluz being the top result that came up when I Googled "Susan Bysiewicz WWE"). Don't like how the WWE has used the Stand Up campaign as a possible campaign slogan? Then you're seen as completely for this particular ruling. In short, they have put many WWE fans between a rock and a hard place because of how some GOP bloggers and people like Fox News are reporting this story. How can you say that Bysiewicz is wrong and still agree with Democratic positions, or say that she is right and still agree with some of Linda's positions?
Actually, this is the attitude of many these days, especially the GOP: if you subscribe to one idea they have, you have to accept ALL of them or else.
The simple thing is that Bysiewicz's ruling is wrong. Dead wrong! There is no reason, unless the clothing in question is specifically saying something about Linda instead of someone like John Cena or another top wrestler in the company, to restrict anyone from voting. How do we know that said Cena fan is going to vote for Linda? Maybe that fan doesn't like her minimum wage stance and has every intention on voting for Blumenthal. How would one person know this, and how could Bysiewicz, especially, consider this as the only way to deal with this issue?
More importantly, think of it this way: since she gave the local poll workers the final say in who would gets turned away from this ruling, whose to say some poll workers will abuse this? This is where Bysiewicz's ruling could backfire. Someone could just turn away a voter, say he or she had a WWE shirt on, intimidate others to not say the truth, and since there's little to no way for anyone to really prove that he or she was discriminated against and that the worker lied about what that person was wearing, the accused would be restricted from voting. Republican-minded poll workers could just as easily use this ruling to stop people they think would vote for Blumenthal, or if there was, say, an initiative on the ballot to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Democratic-minded poll workers could use this ruling, obviously, to stop people from voting and just say that they had a WWE shirt on when they really didn't because they might vote for a Republican candidate.
This is basically the Democrats doing what Republicans did to voters during the Bush Administration. They intimidated voters to vote for GOP initiatives and candidates, and to lure people that would usually vote Republican out to the polls. Same thing here, though the lure could bring with it a sea of people who could get into fights because of what they are wearing. Are we seriously thinking that two wrongs make a right? Is the answer to such a campaign as the Stand Up campaign seems to be to do exactly what the GOP has done to all of us the past eight years or so? We're supposed to be saying that we're better than that, and we're instead, as a direct result of this ruling, stooping to their level.
Finally, what will this possibly pave the way for in years to come. This could have a frightening effect on who else we can restrict. Since Bysiewicz was seemly successful at getting this ruling to stick (and seems to not care what others think), then someone else in another state could think that because Bysiewicz could do this with apparel, that they could restrict any environmentalist from voting because there is an initiative to cut funding on recycling. Then it would get real bad, as someone else might be able to roll back the clock and say, "let's restrict anyone we think is a homosexual from voting", and it would be accepted because, hey, there's a same-sex initiative on the ballot, and they could campaign for/against it.
How about religious people? We can't allow Muslims to vote in New York City because they might be for the Park 51 project. You know, the very thing that Fox News wants you to think is a mosque this is going to be built so close to Ground Zero and that is somehow disrespecting the 9/11 victims? Why shouldn't the GOP try the tactic that Bysiewicz, a Democrat, seemed to win with? Turnabout's fair play, right?
Or, the scariest of all, we keep blacks and women from voting because of initiatives that they could be campaigning for because of them being black or women. All they could do is ask them to go back home and put on Caucasian body paint or dress "manly". What's stopping them? Bysiewicz made this ruling that has seemed to stick, so why not try to take it a step further, and then a step further, until we get to where we were at the beginning: only white men allowed to vote. Don't think it could happen? We didn't think this recent recession could happen, either.
Simply put, Bysiewicz needs to rethink how silly this is, and how this puts people in a hard place. We can support the WWE while not agreeing with Linda McMahon's stance on the issues (and believe me, there's a ton of ways we can disagree with McMahon's stances on those issues). We can say that the Stand Up campaign is nothing more than a political stunt, but still think that this ruling is the worst way to go about countering that. The ruling only acts as a way to pit Americans against Americans, and to say that you have to subscribe to one side's ideas to be able to subscribe to the one you actually agree with.
Bysiewicz should think twice, because who knows what box she could be opening by doing this. She might've opened a cardboard box that will collapse in the storm of controversy from all sides. Or she could've opened Pandora's Box. Trust me, no one wants to see the latter.
Bysiewicz, kill this ruling! It makes you out to be the same kind of Democrat that caved to the health insurance companies and got the public option killed. Just be advised: some Democrats are conservative, too, and they can be removed just as quickly as we elected them.
By the way, you might be weary of the Vietnam Vet voters, too. After all, Blumenthal served in...oh, wait. Nevermind!