EDITORIAL: Voting makes a difference

ISSUE: Primary Election Day

OUR VIEW: Ho-hum. Why vote? 

Why vote today, you say?

Barack Obama, who basically has ignored Kentucky in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president, leads Hillary Rodham Clinton with 1,905 of the 2,026 delegates needed. She has 1,719. Mathematically, there does not seem to be any way Clinton can win the nomination. Maybe.

There haven’t been any Clinton-Obama debates or forums in Kentucky as in other primary or caucus states. But Clinton is expected to capture Kentucky today and claim most of the state’s 51 nominating votes. Obama campaigned Monday in Oregon, the only other state with a primary today and planned a political rally tonight in Iowa.

So what difference does it make?

Besides that, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell has minimal Republican opposition in his bid to return to Washington, D.C., as Senate minority leader. And businessman Bruce Lunsford seems assured of the Democratic nomination, despite the political baggage he carries, to challenge McConnell in November.

Two Democrats, Daviess County Judge-Executive Reid Hare and state Sen. David Boswell, have waged a spirited campaign to compete with state Sen. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, to represent the 2nd Congressional District that includes Hardin County. None of them are from around here, though. Elizabethtown’s veteran state Rep. Jimmie Lee, also has nominal primary opposition.

We shudder to imagine what the coverage tonight is going to do to the state’s image, with CNN and Fox talking-head analysts making points about Kentucky ranking 47th in the percentage of residents with college degrees, punctuated with racially coded references to white, blue-collar workers as they did after West Virginia’s primary.

And not all of us, those registered as other, or independents, can vote anyway.

So why should any of us?

Why bother, indeed!

We should bother because those elected in November to the White House, the Congress in Washington and the General Assembly in Frankfort, will be making decisions that affect nearly every single thing you, your family and loved ones do, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We should bother because we have the privilege and responsibility to speak with ballots instead of bullets to effect change in our land, exercising a right denied too many throughout history and around the planet even today.

We should bother because thousands of Americans have died and will continue to sacrifice to protect and guarantee the right to vote.

So vote today. Have your say.

As Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson urged here last week, take your children to the polls with you. Make it a learning experience for them. Teach them how they, too, can make a difference.

And while you are at it, thank the poll workers for all their efforts, the training sessions and the long day they put in to make voting as convenient as possible.

This editorial represents a consensus of The News-Enterprise editorial board.