unmutualgrizzly.com

I had a minor revelation the other day about how to choose a candidate to vote for in any given election, and I’ve got to say I was really overcomplicating things. When we look into the people that we will potentially vote for we seek out info from news outlets, we watch debates on TV, or we even listen to campaign ads, but what do we hear? If you had asked me that last week I’d have told you that every piece of available information is important, and someone that takes their right to vote seriously will digest as much data about the candidates as they can before coming to a final conclusion. Then I had an eye-opening conversation with a very wise friend of mine, regarding the upcoming special Senate election in Massachusetts on Jan 19th.

For those who don’t know, Massachusetts (where I currently reside) is having a special election on January 19th to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy. The nation has turned its eyes to this race because the crucial 60th Democratic Senate Vote (needed to push through legislation in an unobstructed fashion) hangs in the balance, and the race is closer than people expected. The election features Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley (Democrat) vs. State Senator Scott Brown (Republican). I asked my friend who he’d be voting for, and before I tell you his answer, let me tell you what provoked my question. Earlier this week the final debate between these candidates was held, and during that debate Mrs. Coakley said we should withdraw from Afghanistan because the Taliban and terrorists are no longer there, and that they’ve moved on to other countries like Yemen and Pakistan. This is the same Afghanistan where 8 CIA operatives were killed by terrorists merely 10 days earlier. Oops…

Following this debate Mrs. Coakley took a trip to Washington D.C. where she was hounded by some journalists about her statement regarding Afghanistan. At one point things got ugly and someone on Coakley’s staff pushed one of these reporters into a barrier and to the ground. Coakley was asked about the incident and said she couldn’t comment because she hadn’t seen what had happened. Unfortunately for her someone was shooting video of the incident, and she can be seen looking right at what happened (you can watch the YouTube video here, as well as a video of her comment about the Taliban and Afghanistan here). Heck, let’s pile on while we’re at it and listen to the audio from the radio program “Nightside with Dan Rea” on YouTube, where she calls Red Sox Legend Curt Schilling a Yankee Fan in an effort to discredit his endorsement of opponent Scott Brown (listen here). Clearly Attorney General Coakley has made a few political gaffs in the past two weeks, and this is what prompted me to goad my friend into telling me who he was voting for, as he is a fairly staunch progressive that usually votes for the democrat candidate.

“I’m voting for Martha Coakley, of course.” was his response to me. I asked him how he could be comfortable voting for someone who has just in the last two weeks clearly showed some serious flaws, not to mention her reputation in Massachusetts for being soft on crime, and he told me he was quite comfortable with his decision. I was a bit stunned because at the very least I expected him to either deny the facts about his candidate, or at least defend them with some form of argument, but instead he conceded all my points about Mrs. Coakley and simply told me that they didn’t matter to him. He finished by telling me, “All that matters is how they’re going to vote on key legislation once they get elected”. That was my moment of clarity, when I realized an important truth, and I thanked him for it.

I’m always writing about all the power our Representatives have to change the way we live in a moment, and how important it is to put the right people in place. After all, they can pass legislation to take more money from you, or give more back. They can ban something you love from being legal, or make something legal that was previously unavailable to law-abiding citizens. They can change the way you pay for and receive health care. They can do all these things and much more, and they can do it relatively quickly. These things can effect the very way we live from day to day, and I’m always preaching about that, so you’d think I would’ve come to this conclusion earlier. It doesn’t matter who they are. Some of them will be exposed as liars (see above), others will get caught having extra-marital affairs, still others will show their ineptitude on important issues (again see above), but in the end, when your faced with two candidates in a voting booth, the only thing that matters is how they’re going to vote once they get elected. Are they going to support the things you care about, and vote down the things you abhor?

The best part is that the most transparent thing about most candidates is how they will vote on future issues. Many of them have voting records at lower levels of government (like state and local), and almost all have their views posted right on their website, so there is little question as to which legislation they will support, and which ones they won’t. I would rather vote for a person who lies to me on occasion, makes idiotic statements, sleeps with his secretary and experimented with drugs in college, rather than someone who is a pinnacle of virtue, assuming that the former will vote to lower my taxes, keep us safe, protect my rights and liberties, downsize government and reform health care in a non-socialist way (the things I care about), and that the latter will do the opposite. In the end, if I am true to myself, don’t I have to vote this way.