This is first and foremost a baseball blog… a Twins baseball blog… and I suppose one of the first rules of baseball blogging is that you should stick to baseball in your posts. By all means, you should avoid discussions regarding politics and religion.
But today being Election Day across the US, I’m going to violate that rule today with a brief political post.
Any reader who knows the people who created this blog very well also knows that we each have varying interests in politics, as well as baseball. But don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a post where I try to tell you who you should vote for or which, if any, political party you should support. That’s your business.
What I am going to do is urge you to get your butt out the door and go vote.
I know there is a significant portion of the electorate that has given up on the political parties and on our elected officials. They distrust anyone who stands up and dares to run for public office. I can’t altogether fault people who have an instinctive distrust of all political candidates. I have to fight that reflex myself, at times.
But I believe strongly that it is wrong to allow that distrust to keep us away from the polls. Our form of government and those who run it are far from perfect. But so many Americans have worked and fought too hard… and paid too great a price… to preserve what we have, for us to give up on the process of making things better. That process, I believe, begins with casting a vote.
Are you concerned that the party in power has moved too far, too fast? Go vote for someone who will stem that tide.
Are you concerned that the party in power is not being given enough credit for the good it has done… or enough time to make things better? Go cast your vote to give that party’s candidates your support.
Don’t like either of the two major political parties? Find one of the newer parties and look to see if they have candidates running in your area or look for independent candidates to vote for… but go vote.
Do you wish all elected offices had term limits so politicians don’t become entrenched and unresponsive? We have term limits… they’re called elections. Go vote.
Still can’t convince yourself that anyone running for national or statewide office is worthy of your vote? Look for a neighbor who’s running for a local election or an issue/referendum on your ballot that you can show support for (or opposition to) by casting your vote. In fact, even if you DO support someone running for one of the “big offices”, go find a local candidate/issue to care about enough to vote for/against. Unless you’ve made the effort to work on a campaign yourself at some point, I really don’t think you can realize how hard those local candidates/organizers and their friends and their families really work. Most of them can’t afford the TV or radio ads, but their belief that their cause can make our lives better is often even more fervent than the people you do see on TV. Show them you care enough to vote.
Just like it’s going to be easy over the next few months to criticize the people who make decisions about who will and won’t be suiting up for the Twins next season, it’s even easier to sit back and criticize those who will be making many more important decisions… decisions about our economy, our jobs, our health care system, our roads, our environment, virtually every aspect of our lives and the lives of those who come after us.
We can (and will) continue to voice our opinions about who should and shouldn’t be members of the 2011 Minnesota Twins, but in the end we really have no say in the matter. We can spout off, but that’s all.
But in this country, we can (and will) be heard when it comes to determining the directions that our local, state and federal governments lead us… unless we decide we don’t care enough to be heard.
Vote today!– JC
P.S. Still not convinced? OK, fine… you’re politically agnostic. But at least click here and cast your vote for Andrew Bryz-Gornia, fellow Twins blogger of “Off the Mark”, and help him win CollegeScholarship.org’s 2010 Blogging Scholarship! (Who would have imagined they give scholarships for this stuff?)