I’ve been jilted. Dumped, along with nearly 8.5 million of my fellow Pennsylvania voters, for sexier states with names like Virginia and Nevada. When it comes to electoral politics few things are sadder than a swing state that’s lost its allure. With only a handful of days remaining before the election, our box has been checked. Four years ago, Obama and McCain between them made four dozen visits and spent more than $70 million here. They extolled the beauty of the Poconos and the Susquehanna River, the virtue of our coal miners and factory workers. Today, the chilly autumn winds sweep across empty town squares and town halls once filled with cheering crowds on bright October afternoons. Sure, there’s the stray robocall or the soggy piece of campaign literature stuffed into our mailbox. But the ardor with which the candidates once sought our votes is a memory as fragile as a crumpled valentine pressed into the back pages of a book. Even our brief moment of notoriety this summer, when the state’s voter i.d. law flashed into the national spotlight, can’t compensate for this feeling of abandonment.
Thanks to websites like RealClearPolitics and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog, our preferences have been measured, categorized and exhaustively reported. Whether it’s Obama’s strong showing here in 2008 or simply the Democrats’ 50-37 percent registration advantage, both parties have decided the endearments they once lavished on us would be wasted this time around. As we gaze across the border at the prom queen that’s Ohio we know we’re not alone in our wallflower status. Like a cranky uncle whose periodic appearances at holiday dinners guarantee a certain weirdness, our quirky Electoral College ensures that as the campaign winds down all but a handful of states can be written off by the candidates and their campaign consultants. That’s a dispiriting development considering participation in a presidential election hasn’t cracked 60 percent since 1968. But if voting starts to feel like a kabuki dance it’s not surprising some people who aren’t passionately engaged to begin with won’t brave bad weather, long lines and surly poll workers to cast a vote that seems meaningless. It’s almost enough to make me wonder what would happen if we held an election and no one came. I’ll be there on November 6, but as I close the voting booth curtain I’ll still be missing those boxes of candy and love letters and hoping our Commonwealth will be invited back to the dance in 2016.
