Perez jumped out of the blue behemoth, followed by his aide, who backed it into a spot with precision. Perez greeted Board of Education candidate Elizabeth Brad Noel, who was poll standing, and Democratic Town Committee chair Noel McGregor, who was just visiting.

I couldn't resist. I shook the mayor's hand, and tried to convince him to vote for Sharon Patterson Stallings, the Working Families Party candidate I was canvassing for. My spiel went something like:

"Please consider voting for Sharon Patterson Stallings. Since this isn't a winner-take-all election, Mayor, this is a chance for you to help build third party democracy in Hartford. You get three votes, and it wouldn't hurt to throw a third party a bone."

He politely refused.

"All I can do is ask," I said, and he agreed. But I was persistent, and I handed him a palm card.

"Remember, no one sees how you vote when you close the curtain," I said.

Perez looked at me, and then looked up and pointed to the sunny blue sky.

"God's not a Democrat," I said.

"Yes, she is," he said.

Before he sped away, I should have asked him how his left-leaning creator-she-deity would approve of his leaving his gas-guzzling SUV running for 15 minutes while he voted and schmoozed.

I let Mama Jo MacKenzie - clad in purple - off the hook, too. She pulled up a few minutes later in her gold Mercedes with bumper stickers for George W. Bush and "I support the President and the Troops." I could have asked her if she thought God was a Republican.

But rather than discuss church and state, I was having too much fun asking the dowager of the disgraced Rowland administration if she would consider voting third party.

"You don't have to worry that bad guys will win," I said, thrusting the palm card in her hand. "It's not like Nader."

"I would never vote for him," she said.

Next time I talk to Ralph, I'm going to ask him what he thinks of voting in a church. I cast my ballot for Board of Ed at Grace Lutheran Church on Woodland Street. Isn't there something funny about doing my central democratic duty in a house of worship? Maybe not. It's just a polling place, no different than Annie Fisher School, right?

During my three hours at Annie Fisher, I encountered maybe 25 voters. It gave me plenty of time to chat with Brad Noel's poll standers. West Enders Carl and Shirley Dudley, who volunteered for Noel for a spell, and I discussed the low turnout.

Annie Fisher is traditionally a busy precinct. That's what happens, though, when short charter reform pushes school board elections to an off year. Maybe 5,000 Hartfordites voted. How pathetic. America is failing at self-government.

We poll standers hoped parents walking their children into daycare were voters. When we asked if they were voting, the typical answer was that it didn't mean anything. When people show cynicism about a duty that our forebears died for, we are in trouble. Our republic is ailing, the health of our body politic grave.

While I am glad my candidate, Sharon Patterson Stallings won a seat, this election reinforces the urgent need for democracy building in Hartford, Connecticut and the United States.

I urge the Board of Education to consider creating a magnet school of democracy here in Hartford. I think we must rewrite the district civics curriculum so that every student must visit City Hall, the State Capital and the State Library annually; so that every student can name the Mayor, the members of City Council and their state and federal representatives; so that every student understands the responsibilities of self-governance.

We must secure Election Day for 2050.

11/15/05

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Mayor Eddie Perez

"Next time I talk to Ralph, I'm going to ask him what he thinks of voting in a church"

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"Next time I talk to Ralph, I'm going to ask him what he thinks of voting in a church"