Keller @ Large: Middle Lane Voters Rise Up
BOSTON (CBS) - Are you an unenrolled voter with a moderate streak who doesn't much care for partisanship and doesn't like extremism?
Then maybe you'll relate to this story: I took a little drive on Saturday on Route 2, and settled right in at around the speed limit in a section where the highway has three lanes.
I took the middle lane, because that's what I prefer to do, leave the left lane for drivers who want to speed things up, and leave the exit lane on the right for those who want to bail out of the way things are going. And within seconds, all heck broke loose. Drivers were whizzing past me on both sides at up to double the speed limit, zooming up behind me before veering off to pass, and giving me dirty looks as they went by, because I had the nerve to be obeying the law.
It isn't easy going through life in the middle lane. The left lane and the right lane are filled with self-righteous drivers who think they've got a patent on the correct way to drive, and if you're not in their lane with them, you're essentially one of the enemy, just as bad if not worse than the nuts in the opposite lane.
In fact, when you drive the middle lane, the disciples of the left lane and the right lane often mark you up as a closet ally of the "others," the hated ones who drive on the other side of the road. Failure to embrace their driving habits is considered just as much of a rejection.
If you're a driver like me, I'm sure you understand my frustration, and perhaps have experienced the occasional pleasure that comes when the cops out enforcing the traffic laws put the collar on one of the right or left-lane cowboys.
It feels like a vindication of social norms, a statement by the great silent middle that in the end, the behavior of those other drivers is out of line and subject to public veto.
Come to think of it, those moments are a lot like elections, when middle-lane voters rise up and reject the speeding and tailgating of the right and left.
Is it just me, or do you also sense a speed trap setting up for a field day of ticketing the political establishment come tomorrow morning?
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