ValueSpeak
A Weekly Column
By Joseph Walker
IT'S
My daughter, Beth, is voting in her first
presidential election this year. It’s an opportunity – and a responsibility –
that she takes very seriously.
She’s been studying the candidates and their
respective positions on critical issues. She’s been perusing newspapers and
news magazines, looking for the latest information on who is saying what. She
looked forward to the recent presidential and vice presidential debates with
the same fervor and anticipation that she usually reserves for fiction novels
about vampires, and she was anxious to compare post-debate notes with everyone.
Unfortunately, few of her associates are as
motivated in this direction as she is. When she tries to engage them in
political discussion, most make jokes about “weak” candidates and “bad”
choices. When she presses them about why they feel that way, they shrug their
shoulders and admit that they haven’t really looked that carefully at the
candidates – and don’t really intend to.
“I don't understand it,” Beth said the other day.
“My friends admit that they aren’t very well informed, but they aren’t doing
anything to
“Debates?” I asked. “What
debates?”
OK, so maybe I’m not as politically aware this
year as I should be. I think I’ve earned the right to be a little jaded. In my
first presidential election I hopped on the Nixon bandwagon with both feet.
“It’s all about character,” I told young people in my area. And I was
persuasive enough to convince many to vote for him. I heard from a few of them
after Nixon resigned. One even returned his “Nixon's the One!” pin. It’s still
around here somewhere – I’m not sure where.
During the next election year I decided to stay
away from presidential politics. Instead, I went to work full-time on the
gubernatorial campaign of a man I had known most of my life. “It's all about
character,” I told people throughout the northern part of our state. And I
really believed it. He was a good, honorable man who had proven his ability
through years of dedicated public service in the state legislature. He would
have been a fine governor. But we never made it out of the primaries. Turns out
voters didn’t like my candidate’s hair.
Or lack of it.
I gave it another shot about 10 years ago. There
was this extraordinary lady in our area who was
willing to run for the state legislature. She was bright, articulate and full
of energy and great ideas. More important, she was a person of sterling
character. “And of course,” I told my friends and neighbors, “it’s all about
character.” And it would have been, too, if she had belonged to the “correct”
political party. But she didn't, so she lost.
Big.
Beth listened to me patiently as I explained all
of this. And she seemed to understand my disenchantment. She had only one
question: “Do you still believe in the system?”
I’ve thought about that a lot the past few days,
as campaign rhetoric builds for the frenzied sprint to early November. While
there are plenty of reasons for voter apathy or mistrust, it really all comes
down to that one question: do we believe in the process or not? If we believe
in democracy, then we really have no excuse for not taking the time these last
few weeks to get informed and become active in the political process. Because
when it comes right down to it, it really is all about character.
Ours.
# # #
— © Joseph Walker
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