Today is Election Day and I am going to vote! This past weekend I spent an hour reviewing the candidates that were on my ballot. I wanted to understand where they stood on certain issues and learn how they have done their job in the past. I wanted to be an “informed voter”.
I can’t say that I have been an informed voter in prior elections. I would just go and vote. Sometimes I would vote for whichever candidate’s sign I liked better. This time of year you see the signs dotting the lawns of homes and businesses all over the place. I’m not sure if the best way to vote is to pick the candidate by cool signs but that is what I did.
Sometimes I would vote because one of the candidate’s people called me on the phone recently. If it wasn’t a computer and a real person, that was good. It would boost my ego-this person on the phone is being nice to me and asking me my opinions. Wow-I must count for something! Let me rush right out and vote for that person. I know that they all do this and the only reason they are being nice to me is to get my vote. The same way the clerk in the clothing store is being nice to me-they want me to buy my shirt from them so they can get their commission.
I don’t really know any politicians so I don’t know what the job is like. I don’t know what kind of pressure they are under on a daily basis. I’m sure there is pressure from their donors, their party, the person whose potholes have not yet been fixed.
I met Chris Gibson once at the Tour of The Battenkill bike race in Cambridge. He was nice to me and even asked me a question about the bike race. I think I voted for him when he was running for state rep in the next election. He is the President of Siena College now so maybe I will push one of my kids go to Siena College because I “know” the president there.
One time I had lunch at the Maine Governor’s mansion in Augusta. I had help run a project for work that provided the network infrastructure for every single school that held grades K-8 in the State of Maine. I got my picture with Angus King who was Governor of Maine at the time. I’m not sure where that picture is today. I know I voted for Angus King in the next election. I’m not sure if I voted for him because of the lunch at his mansion or because his name reminded me of Angus Young from AC/DC and I like their music.
You hear that this is “The Most Important Election of our Time!” That may or may not be the case-I don’t know and I can’t control that. What I can control is how I meet the world when I wake up tomorrow morning. I can turn off the headlines and I can move forward with kindness towards the people I meet. If that makes me “uninformed” that is OK. Sometimes being uninformed works just right for me.
Yorumlar