This is for all the people who didn't.

After nearly eight years of the Bush Administration, what remains so painful is that it all could have been avoided. Eight years of utter incompetence was made possible by a relative handful of votes in the state of Florida.

There were, of course, a myriad of ways that Florida could have swung to Gore — Palm Beach County eschews the butterfly ballot, Ralph Nader keeps his ego in check and doesn't run, the Supreme Court doesn't have Scalia or Thomas on it.

So many could-haves and should-haves.

Here's, however, what interests me.

The final, official difference was just 537 votes. Setting aside all the previous factors, what about the eligible Florida voters who stayed home on that Election Day in 2000? What about the people who were leaning towards Gore but somehow didn't make it to the polls?

Just as in every election, there must have been countless decent citizens who intended to participate in democracy — who, in fact, usually do vote — but found that their life got in the way that day. Maybe their kid's basketball practice ran later than expected. Maybe they had an unexpected business meeting that took them out of the country. Maybe they woke up that morning with a flu bug. And, they thought to themselves, "Well, it's not going to be the end of the world if I don't vote today. Plenty of people will. My vote won't be the difference."

It's not about blame. Most of us have been there and done the exact same thing at some point in our lives. But after nearly eight long years, does it weigh on you?

This blog is the place to talk about it — just post in the comments section or send me an email. It might become part of a bigger project. If you've felt every Bush Administration misstep even more acutely than most, it might be therapeutic. At the very least, you can be a reminder that every vote could really count this November.