Time to Do Some Politicking!

Faith in the Public Square
Lompoc Record
February 2, 2008


I would love to tell you not only how I'm going to cast my ballot on Tuesday, but who you should vote for as well. I'm tempted to give an endorsement here, but I'm going to refrain from doing so in this forum - for obvious reasons. That being said, I can't let this upcoming election pass by without offering a few comments concerning the importance of participating in this election.

The first thing to say about what's happening is that matters of faith have become important to candidates from both parties. All are, to one degree or another, Christian in their profession. There are no Muslims, no Buddhists, no Wiccans, nor any atheists in the bunch. While some candidates have been more vocal than others about the role their faith will play in their decision making, we the voters are left with the responsibility of testing those statements and deciding how comfortable we are with them.

I'm especially intrigued by this year's election cycle because from the beginning it has been wide open and free wheeling. Candidates have come and gone, some front runners have fallen back into the pack. Because there's no incumbent president or vice president in the running for the first time in decades, there's no designated heir. Although the field has slimmed down considerably since this marathon began, no candidate from either of the two major parties has taken a commanding lead. Indeed, it's quite possible that this race will go way past Feb. 5 and on to the respective conventions. That hasn't happened in a very long time.

This is also an historic election because for the first time a person of color and a woman have a good chance of being a party's nominee. Whether you like either candidate or support their views, this is clearly a groundbreaking event in our nation's history. Whether or not either of them wins in November, we're crossing the Rubicon of our history. It's no longer if, but when, a woman or a person of color is our president. This new chapter in our history as a nation could begin just one year from now, and if not now, then it will be soon.
For a Californian to have a say in determining the nominee of the party is a new thing, and so we should take this seriously. While some say: “My vote doesn't really count,” every vote does count. Sometimes, as we saw in the 2000 election, a handful of votes either way can make a difference. Besides, I've always believed that if we take seriously the idea that the people form the foundation of our government, then if we don't vote, we have no legitimate right to complain.
The primary season is really round one. Come November, we'll return to our polling places (or send in our absentee ballots) and choose who will lead our country for the next four to eight years. In doing so, we will likely be setting the direction of the nation for the foreseeable future.
Each party offers us different platforms and visions for the future. Each candidate offers differing personalities, experiences, temperaments, and abilities. There are important issues at hand - issues like a war in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, the economy and immigration, health care and education, crime and the specter of terrorism, energy and the environment. Ultimately we don't now how any of the candidates will deal with these issues, but we can seek to discern from their own person how they might deal with them. And from that sense of the person, we must make our choices.

There's a long way to go before the final tallies, but the future is at hand and we must cast our vote for the future of our nation. As I said earlier, this is a duty to be taken seriously. It requires that we pay close attention to what's being said and how it's being said. We must try to filter out the truth from the half-truths and falsehoods (especially the ones being spread by way of the Internet, most often through e-mails passed from one person to the next, with no way of knowing where they originated). It's time to thoughtfully (and for many of us, prayerfully) make our voices heard.

Dr. Bob Cornwall is Pastor of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Lompoc. He blogs at http://pastor bobcornwall.blogspot.com and may be contacted at faithinthepublicsquare@gmail.com or c/o First Christian Church, P.O. Box 1056, Lompoc, CA 93438.

February 3, 2008

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