One state, two state, red state, blue state. Even months before the election &045; before a vote is even cast &045; pundits and media outlets have begun to predict how the electoral college will shake out on Nov. 2.

Mississippi is already firmly in the &uot;red&uot; category, while Louisiana is leaning that way.

What that means, of course, is that the presidential candidates are paying less and less attention to states like ours. Democratic soon-to-be-nominee John Kerry has even pulled much of his advertising from Louisiana; perhaps he sees it as a lost cause.

The so-called &uot;tossup states&uot; &045; Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and West Virginia &045; have received so many visits from Kerry and President Bush they might as well take up residence in any of them.

Meanwhile, Louisiana and Mississippi got cursory visits, if they got them at all.

After all, if a state doesn’t have the electoral votes to matter, why bother?

We don’t disagree with the electoral college &045; it was, historically, a unique way to solve a dispute and create better representation across the United States.

But we resent the implication that our votes don’t matter. They do &045; and the issues we all care about certainly matter. We deserve to hear from the candidates, and we deserve to have them listen to our views.

We can’t all be reduced to red versus blue. Issues and elections are far more complicated than partisan politics leads us to believe. Polls tell us we are truly a divided nation, but most of us care about exactly the same issues &045; security, the economy, the war in Iraq.

But we learned on election night four years ago that we can’t necessarily listen to polls. We all need to vote this election day.