Government Belongs To Those Who Show Up

Tomorrow we go vote in what everyone is calling "the most historic election of our time." The only problem with this pronouncement is that I cannot recall any election in my 39 odd years of voting that was not called "the most historic election of our time." This, of course implies that, if things go the way the prognosticators want them to, then big sweeping change is heading our way. But, in truth, this is very rarely the case. The reality is - governing is hard! Whoever gets in, that is any newcomers (as the veterans already know it), will be smacked with this from their first day in office.

 If say Rick Snyder becomes our next governor (and if you believe the polls, he’s going to get it by a landslide), the former business executive is going to learn a hard lesson from his first day on – Lansing is not Gateway. He will not be able to issue executive directives with everyone either towing the line or find another job. He’s going to find out very quickly - governing is hard. To get anything done, he will have to face down the daunting task of convincing 51% of 148 elected representatives in the Michigan legislature that his way is better. If he fails in this, he will fail as governor. He’s never held office before, zero political experience. It takes a lot more than just ideas to govern.

So I don’t expect that this really will be an historic election. I expect that whoever gets in will face the same daunting challenges and obstacles as did those who went before them. Governing is a process. Governing is a struggle. And two years from now, that struggle and process will still be in force. I expect that some things will be better and other things will be worse. In two years, who ever gets in tomorrow will be blamed for whatever is worse and the opposing party will try valiantly to take credit for whatever is better. That is politics.

In this posting, I’m going to do my share of civic duty. It used to be that you could go to organizations like the League of Women Voters and get not only complete profiles of the issues and candidates, but also thorough analyses and an endorsement of who they think is best qualified. These endorsements were always what I found to be the most valuable. I consider myself fairly well informed. I read a few newspapers and news magazines and have firm opinions on many candidates and issues. However, it is patently impossible for anyone, unless they make it their profession, to be informed about all candidates and all issues. In every election, there is always some obscure office or ballot proposal that I know little about and the media coverage of these do nothing but confuse me. When all the media does is present a laundry list of qualifications without any perspective, when all it does is provide a balanced presentation of pro and con without any analysis, when all they do is let candidates expound their arguments without ever saying, "In our view this argument is right and this is why ... or this argument is wrong," all it does is leave confusion. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. They do give opinion, but usually this opinion is so truncated as to be virtually worthless.) Most people then make their choice based on whether they agree or disagree with a candidate’s political philosophy. This is not nearly good enough for me. Philosophy often ends up getting modified when faced with the reality that now this elected official has to get 51% of his or her fellow elected officials to go along. No, agreeing on philosophy is not nearly enough.

The League of Women Voters and other organizations of their ilk have long since stopped making endorsements, feeling that they must remain non-partisan. I can’t express how silly I think that is. There’s no such thing as being non-partisan and there’s no such thing as being unbiased, as hard as we sometimes try. (And as easily as we quite often don’t even try!) Years ago, every newspaper out there used to publish a list of their endorsements the day before any election. Some newspapers like the Spinal Column used to even publish really valuable charts showing every media outlet in the area and a summary of all their endorsements – all in one eye shot.

Of course, we all have strong positions on some candidates and some issues and, when this is the case, we vote our minds, not the opinion of experts. Still, this chart was invaluable to me as I could easily see for the more obscure races and issues where the consensus fell among those people who had studied the election so much more thoroughly than you or I would ever have time for. I do not think that a lack of information is an excuse not to vote. I like to cast a vote on everything and I always found these endorsements invaluable for helping me do so. (The exception: any office where the candidate has no challenger. Thus, if the candidate merely votes for him or herself, it’s an automatic victory. This does not strike me as being very democratic so I ignore them. I will not help someone win who has no opposition. It’s my way of giving any possible write-in challengers a shot.)

But in recent years, very few newspapers are publishing endorsements anymore and there is no longer anyplace where you can go to get a summary of everyone’s endorsements all in one place, not the Internet, not any newspaper. Believe me, I’ve spent many hours during election seasons for years now trying. I have had to resort to making this chart myself, spending hours combing over newspapers in the library and over the Internet to get every media outlet’s endorsements one at a time (those that are available that is) and tabulating it all on the Orchard Lake ballot. Fortunately, they’ve now at least made getting the ballot easy. Until recently, you had to go to city hall to request a sample ballot and, of course, to remember to do this during business hours, which I often did not. Now all one need do is go to the Secretary of State’s web site where, by simply entering your name and zip code, you are immediately informed whether you are registered to vote and, if so, given a sample ballot for your precinct and location of your polling site.

So here goes for Election 2010. You may have already noticed it at the top of the post: the first page of the ballot for tomorrow’s election with notations next to each candidate and ballot proposal showing how many and what kind of endorsements each has received. I have collected endorsements from every source I could find, without regard to party affiliation or political philosophy. It is my civic contribution and I hope that at least some of you find it useful.   (Since I cannot post pdf files on this blog, I have attached the complete ballot to the email that directed you to this posting.) 

My favorite political quote is from Winston Churchill who once said, "Democracy is a terrible way to govern. We would never do it except that every other way is so much worse." Governing is hard and it is made so much harder by the fact that so few people vote. Of all U.S. citizens who are eligible to register to vote, only about half do so. Of all registered voters, only about half actually vote. That means only about 1 in 4 of our fellow Americans who could be voting do. Of course, everyone still votes in the forum of public opinion - and in the polls. How do our officials govern when there is so little citizen participation? I am always sickened by the lame excuse that "my vote doesn’t count." How ignorant! There is only one good reason not to vote and that is if you are so satisfied with the choices that you’d be happy whoever wins. Of course, this is never the case. People don’t show up because they’re lazy; they don’t show up because they’re disgusted. But mostly they don’t show up because they don’t care. Just please don’t say, "My vote doesn’t count." Only 1 in 4 shows up. Of course your vote counts! And the proof is this: I can not remember any election where there wasn’t at least one race somewhere where the difference between the winner and loser was just a handful of votes. But you never know which race it’s going to be. That’s why every vote most certainly does count!

One of my very favorite television shows ever was "The West Wing." There was of course the criticism that the fictional White House in the show was supposed to be a sanitized Clinton. I think the critics missed the point and said this only because Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet was a Democrat and the show was on during the Clinton era. But anyone who was paying attention couldn’t have missed the fact that Sheen’s Bartlet held as many conservative positions on the issues as he did liberal ones. He was also a President, certainly an idealized version of what we’d like all our Presidents to be, who was always reaching across the aisle to the opposing party and was always recruiting for his staff the smartest people he could find, including quite conservative Republicans.

My very favorite episode was the first season finale when Bartlet is giving a speech at a DC university, after which there is a cliff-hanger assassination attempt against him. But in his fictional speech, he said something about politics that I thought really summed up the whole ball of wax. "Government belongs to those who show up," stressing the crucial need for an active citizenry if democracy is going to work. This line echoed classic speeches from real-life presidents from John F. Kennedy’s "ask not what what your country can do for you ..." to the first George Bush’s tribute to "the thousand points of light."

For months now, we’ve been reading about how the Republicans are going to sweep tomorrow. If the Republicans do one thing really well, it is in organizing their troops and getting them all fired up, something the Democrats seem to only be able to do when they have an outstanding leader. And it’s all fine and good that the Republicans are firing up their base; they’ve been in quite a lot of trouble for years now. It’s fine that the Republicans are touting their horns so loudly and being so optimistic, be it realistic or not, about their chances for success tomorrow. What is not fine, what is not at all fine, is that the Democrats are even buying into all this rhetoric. The Republicans have been so effective with their message that even the Democrats believe it now. Shame on the Democrats for not having more faith in themselves. If you believe the polls, the Republicans are going to win big because the Republicans are going to be the only ones showing up tomorrow. The predictions are that the Democrats are so discouraged they’re going to stay home. This is not democracy, it’s lazy citizenship. You don’t vote because you think you’re going to win, you vote because you believe in the cause!

Government belongs to those who show up. I hope the polls are wrong. I hope there’s a good turnout tomorrow, Republican and Democrat alike. I hope the election results reflect the will of the people and not just the tiny 1 in 4 minority that typically gets involved. But if the polls are right and the Democrats do lose, they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves.