Every two years, we roll out another editorial urging our readers to rouse themselves and vote in municipal and school elections, and every two years, between 3 percent and 5 percent of the eligible voters in Denton turn out to determine who will govern the other 95 percent to 97 percent.

We are about to do it again, but we’re not sure our heart is in it.

All this hoo-ha about the “power of the press” is overblown, and we suspect it always has been. Every so often, a newspaper may shame a public official into doing the right thing — briefly — but that is about as far as it gets. We have just about quit trying to shape public opinion here in this provincial little paper and have settled for observing the public sideshow, like the fat guy who described the giant balloons every Thanksgiving in the Macy’s Parade. Oooh; here come Garfield and Odie!

Oh, we will make a feeble effort every once in a while. A few years ago, we had a great idea. It would be neat, we thought, if everybody in Little Elm began calling themselves “Little Elmers,” and we published an eloquent editorial to that effect.

Nothing, not even outrage. The idea sank like a bowling bowl cast into the middle of Lewisville Lake.

We still cling, however, to the quaint belief that residents of a vibrant and growing city can somehow be convinced to take an active role in the governance of that city.

Our city officials and school board members, after all, will be making decisions that will affect us and our children every day of the year, which is more than any state legislator, congressman, United States senator or president can say.

The local officials will determine when our streets will be repaired, or if they will be repaired at all. They will either make sure that we are well protected by our police and fire departments or they won’t. They will determine how much our teachers will be paid, and where new schools will be built.

We always make every effort to get out and vote on general election day, but we do not lose a wink of sleep if circumstances conspire to keep us away from the polls. The republic will survive if we don’t get to vote for some senatorial candidate who couldn’t find Denton without a Mapsco and an aide to read it to him.

But we are downright postal about voting in city or school elections: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night will keep us away. It is important to us that we vote for good people, but it is just as important — maybe more so — that we vote against the knuckleheads who seem to pop up every spring, like dandelions, to inflict themselves on the populace by running for office.

Every election season we make this same argument; every election season the argument gets less rational and more plaintive.

We are going to make it one more time.

A bevy of smart, dedicated and public-spirited candidates have offered themselves for public office — along with the usual small can of mixed nuts. The candidates in the first group deserve your consideration; those in the second need to be discouraged. Whoever wins will be making decisions every month that have a greater impact upon your daily life than 90 percent of the votes cast in the United States Senate.

This newspaper will be publishing a list of polling places and voting hours before election day on Saturday. Look for it, find out where you vote and then go do it on Saturday.

Let Saturday be the day that voters in Denton decide to govern themselves and not leave their fate to a group of people who could fit comfortably in the stands of your average high school gymnasium.