About 62 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in 2008. That means about 126 million people voted, and 93 million eligible voters did not. Voter turnout was even lower in 2012.

Our current president has no history of relevant experience that would qualify him for the job, but he still won the 2008 general election by 9.6 million votes because tens of millions of people just shrugged their shoulders and said, "why bother?"

The consequences of eligible-voter apathy have begun to appear. The percentage of workers actually in the labor force is the lowest in over 25 years, paychecks have shrunk for middle-income families, health costs are soaring, and the outlook for better economic days ahead is grim.

So I keep asking myself, "How do we get the tens of millions of absent voters to care?" I don't profess to know the answer, but if a significant percentage of the apathetic bloc can be enticed to engage, then many Obama voters will also see things differently and the change our citizens so desperately need can begin to occur.

I also know that if the Republican leadership keeps doing what it has been doing, we'll get what we have been getting, and future generations of Americans will be the worse off for it.

Rex A. Hoover

Sumerduck