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Campaigns coming to a close, who will win?
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It is all almost over. Candidates can say goodbye to meetings in living rooms and at homeowners' association clubhouses, the debates, addressing envelopes, writing endless e-mails and wearing out their shoe leather. The campaign season is winding down.
For many local residents, it has been a time of intense interest. They realize these local elections will in many ways have a greater impact on their quality of life than any other decision they will make this year.
The federal and state dollars will build the roads, but it is local councils that decide where they will go. Walmart will build another 20 superstores in the next few years, but it is your local council that will decide if the traffic from one of those stores will plague your neighborhood.
How much do you know about your local politics, issues and personalities? All of us could probably do with more information, even in this information age. But whatever our political I.Q., it is enough to be involved.
I have always said good candidates make good politics. People need choices. And in most places this year there are lots of candidates. I am amazed that so many have stood up to run for office.
Why do so many spend so much of their time and their treasure to take on what is often a thankless task? For most, it is a sense of public duty.
When they are elected, they give up even more time. Most don't realize just how much time it does require. Every year, I see one or two give up too much, and their business or their regular job suffers. Yet they continue on.
But these folks are not saints. And some candidates are better than others. Some are head and shoulders above the other choices. Some maybe are a head lower. Now don't go asking me to tell you who.
First, among the first-time politicians that I watch, many far surpass my predictions or expectations. Most political handicappers are about as good at that art as stockbrokers are at picking great stocks.
That is, incidentally, why stockbrokers are paid commissions on the sale of the stocks and not the stocks' performance.
The point is, it is not that hard to make up your own mind, and it only takes a little effort. Talk to friends and co-workers. Look on Web sites.
Candidates also fulfill an important role in the social contract between a democratic republic and its people. It gives us a choice. But every contract needs the signatures of all parties — by that I mean there is a social obligation to go to the polls to vote.
And I'll tell you a secret. Once you start voting, it becomes habit-forming. Because you took the time to vote, each local issue will give you a stake you didn't know you had. You won't be able to resist seeing where the people you voted for stood on those issues closest to you.
If you are completely dissatisfied, you will return with a vengeance to correct that vote the next time around. If you are pleased, you will want to make sure your loud-mouthed neighbor doesn't rock the vote.
For some residents, their interest in the community ends at the bottom of their driveway. All they care about is how much tax they will have to pay. Well, guess what? One of the boards that will decide not only how much but where tax money is spent is having an election this year.
For whatever reason people vote, it will be a good one. For whatever reason they don't, the real reason is apathy. I wonder what the people of Iran and Afghanistan would think about having the ability to vote in a free and fair election – and not get shot at standing in line.
Well, it is your choice.
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