FIRST TIME VOTERS - VOTE!

FIRST TIME VOTERS – VOTE!

By Andrew Malekoff©

As Election Day 2008 approaches I wonder how first-time voters, particularly teenagers, are faring with the challenge of sorting out the two candidates. Even when I have had my best sleep and my powers of concentration are sharpest, I cannot fully trust what I am thinking and hearing and whether or not I can accurately differentiate substance from style and media image from genuine person. As I watch and listen to the debates and see political ads flashing by, I am reminded of psychologist Howard Gardner’s view that we tend to place great emphasis on intellect, especially language skills and ability to reason and perhaps less emphasis on more personal intelligences.

The Candidates, Character and Multiple Intelligences

Dr. Gardner, author of “Multiple Intelligences,” identifies key areas that we should look for in leaders that go beyond scholastic ability. They include abilities to understand oneself and others; and an ability to address profound human concerns, and especially during times of crisis. These are abilities that we cannot possible know about for sure through scripted sound bytes and clever marketing.

We know that John McCain is a war hero, a brave soldier who refused to abandon his comrades and made an unimaginable personal sacrifice. We know that Barack Obama is the product of a racially mixed union. He resolutely navigated a labyrinth of social minefields that growing up biracial necessitates.

In my view, both are imperfect men of character that have proven themselves in times of crisis. If there is agreement that the character issue is a wash, does it make it any easier for young people placing their ballot for the time? I think not. After all, it doesn’t make it any easier for me.

Fear Factor

And, we cannot forget about the fear factor, the fire that is ignited and stoked in the laboratories of sleazy political operatives who trade in paranoia. They tell us that the actuarial tables are stacked against 72-year old John McCain, and that Barack Obama is a variation of the fictional Manchurian Candidate on a mission to bring down the country. The fear factor is aimed at fence sitters, independents who can be swayed one way or the other and whose collective votes can make all the difference.

So when one checks off character, pushes through media deceit, and overcomes the fear factor – all formidable obstacles to overcome – first-time voters are left with faith, faith about what they glean that each candidate really stands for in the areas that are most important to them.

Hometown Security

For me, what is really important in this era of homeland security, physical security that protects us from the outside-in, is that we don’t ignore hometown security, security that protects us from the inside-out. Inside-out security is about what needs to happen in the guts of our states, cities and towns to improve the standard of living, quality of education and physical and mental health care for all Americans.

Since 2001, according to first ever American Human Development Report (2008-2009) for a wealthy, developed nation, published by the Columbia University Press, “the income of the typical American family has stagnated…health outcomes for children are bad and not improving…and globalization and technological change have made it extraordinarily difficult for poorly educated Americans to achieve economic self sufficiency, peace of mind and self-respect enabled by a secure livelihood.”

Sorting More than Campaign Buttons

When I vote in a few days I will be reminded for the first time in decades of the excitement in the air that I felt as a child when the Kennedy-Nixon campaign was in full swing in 1959. I was too young to vote but I was able to choose a button from a bridge table that someone set up around the corner from our apartment on Wainwright Street in Newark, New Jersey. I was happy with the button I chose to pin to my t-shirt.

This year, almost a half-a-century later, there is a lot more to do than to sorting out buttons. First-time voters and I need to sort truth from slick campaigning fiction. As Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, former president of Notre Dame University said, “Voting is a civic sacrament.”

I offer all good wishes to first-time voters who have sacrificed their time and energy to make some sense of who to support on November 4th. It is the soul searching and the struggling through that make you the true winners on Election Day.

Congratulations and welcome to the machine.

To be published in the Anton chain of Newspapers, Long Island, New York in October 2008