Much has been made in this year's presidential campaign about fighting for "the people." Texas Gov. George W. Bush says he will leave no child behind and will end what he has termed the education recession in the midst of economic progress. Vice President (and newly anointed frontrunner) Al Gore '69 has laid his claim to represent "the people, not the powerful." And, ever-fading into the obscurity of low polling percentages, presidential hopefuls Patrick J. Buchanan and Ralph Nader claim that only their stands can represent Americans in the face of the Republicrat system.

Yet who are "the people"? And do they vote?

On Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau released its numbers on income and poverty for 1999, which showed a median household income of $40,816 and an 11.8 percent poverty rate--the lowest numbers since before the recession of the early 1990s. Good figures, and important affirmation of the strong economy's ability to reach deep into the American landscape, but, for 33 million people, still not enough to lift them out of poverty.

Following historic trends, the highest poverty rate and lowest median income were those of black Americans, followed closely in both categories by Latinos. Asian-Americans earned significantly better than the average median income, while whites hugged the national line.

To me, these are most obviously the people of the country--rural whites, urban blacks and Latinos. A call to the people should be a promise to these economically, socially and culturally marginalized Americans that the candidate will bring them along on the trip to the White House.

If a claim for the support of the people is anything more than rhetoric, it can be a gutsy one. Because these people are not those suburban independent voters, whom the campaigns are wooing somewhere between the private school door, the movie theater, and the gas tank of the SUV. These people are more likely to be the ones pumping that gas, taking the ticket, or mopping the schoolroom floor.

These are people who may not appear in the polls as likely to vote because the five minutes of civic duty may be five free minutes too many to ask of the shift manager, the childcare provider or the overworked spouse. For these men and women, undecided does not only describe their status on who to vote for--it describes their feelings on whether voting is worth their time at all.

Today, there are 33 million votes up for grabs--and no one is paying any attention.