Regardless of which candidates you like or dislike in this year’s general election, take a moment to acknowledge that everyone who stepped forward to put themselves in front of the unflinching and sometimes unsympathetic public eye deserves a measure of respect and perhaps a bit of applause.
At a time when voter turnout continues to shrink (despite all efforts to make this privilege more like an afterthought than an exercise), it is no small matter to put your ideas, personality and record on display and then ask friends, family and complete strangers to rank them against someone else’s attributes and foibles.
If that prospect weren’t daunting enough, the trappings that come with actually winning a political race can look more a sentencing for the loser:
¿ Weekly meetings that start early and end late;
¿ Bombarded with complaints from unhappy citizens (very few folks go to a government meeting with a compliment);
¿ Understanding arcane and sometimes conflicting regulations;
¿ Pay that looks more like insult than a reward.
Why would anyone do it?
To serve, to not just be in a community but part of it and make a difference.
Those ideals may sound outmoded, but they are the foundation of our system. Having people who still find value in those ideals is what fixes potholes, widens roads, installs sidewalks, educates children, determines what gets built next door and sets your tax rates to pay for it all.
Thank goodness somebody wants the job.
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