Vote

I know many of you out there already know how I feel about this subject and based on my children's reaction to the DFL party have probably already arrived to the conclusion that I am a Republican. I should point out though that I do not vote a strict ticket and the opportunity to sway me is always a possibility for any candidate. I research, watch, and try my best to strain out candidate/ media slants on information as I receive it. I really don't think your vote should just be looked at as something you do to get the candidate that you want. The actual process of voting is as important as the outcome. It is a step we can take to show our support for the freedom of choice that we have in this country.


I suppose I should tell you the story of my first election opportunity and that will give you a little more insight to why this is such an important thing for me.


The November I turned 18 came quicker then I expected. It was not a presedential election year, and so that made it seem lesss important to me. I watched the commercials on TV and heard discussions in my college classes, but I did not do any looking into what candidates I really thought deserved my vote. I saw the commercials for Jesse Ventura on TV and at first was waiting for the energizer bunny to come rolling by. There was no way that I thought he could possibly become elected. His campaign ads, I thought were as detrimental to his campaign as his opponents. So as I left my evening class from the local college, it was raining. As I ran to the car getting wet I decided I would not bother going to the voting polls. Because I had not earlier I would have to register at that time, I was tired and had some studying to do. I decided that I was not informed enough to make a decision base on what I thought were the only two candidates. So I just went home. I could not believe it the next morning when I heard he had one. As I sat in my morning class, I heard so many of the people in my class laughing about how they had voted for Jesse "the body" Ventura, just because they could. They all admitted that although they had never bothered to vote before that they did this time just to be funny. That's right people Governor Ventura was elected by a bunch of stupid drunk college students. I know now that it is not only my duty to vote it is my responsibility. That way even if an idiot gets elected when someone from another state asks me, "How did that idiot get elected?" I will not have to feel guilty about my lack of vote. Lack of action is an action of complacency that I will not be a part of again. I am not saying that idiots won't be elected if I vote, but I however can at least tell myself I did what I could.

And so this morning when I had to break the news to Nathan that Obama would be our president, I did my best to explain that voting is important even though I knew that the candidate I had voted for had not won. We also talked about how we will respect our new president. We will pray for our new president. And if opportunities arise we will let the new president know that we still do not support abortion or gay marriage, but we will respect the position of the President of the United States.