A TIME TO VOTE

by R J Shulman

It’s Election Day and I had a great summary all worked out of why you should vote for a certain candidate, but I am not going to post it. You see in all of the rhetoric thrown about regarding this election something has been lost, and that something is the truth.

So instead of trying to prove my candidate’s worthiness, I want to tell you a story.  I am going to ask all of you to use your imagination while you are reading this story, and when you are done I want you to listen to what is in your heart.

This is the story of a President, who took office after the previous party’s leader had messed things up so badly that he had driven the country into the worst financial crisis since the biggest one that country had ever had.  He did it by engaging in reckless and useless wars, letting the wealthy off the hook for paying their fair share of taxes, and by allowing the greed of the already privileged devour the wealth of the middle class and throw many of them out of their homes into the street. 

Now this new President, who is the subject of our story, slowly began to turn things around.  The President was able to end one war and begin the wind down of the other.  The President saved the country’s economy from certain meltdown.  The President made sure that millions of people would get healthcare, as he pushed back against gigantic insurance companies who were mostly interested on making as much profit as they could on the misery of the sick.  The President saved the country’s biggest manufacturing industry with timely loans.  The President made sure there were laws in place that would help protect the pay of women, who were consistently underpaid.  The President oversaw a daring operation that eliminated the country’s arch enemy, a terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of many ordinary citizens of the President’s country.  The President was responsible for repealing a policy in the military that unfairly punished and ruined the careers of good soldiers who had a sexual orientation that was in the minority while at the same time making sure that all in the military received higher benefits for their efforts to defend their country.  The President improved the image of his country with most of the rest of the world.  The President made sure it was easier for its young people to seek a college education, but making assistance to them more available.  The President presided over a modest, but steady growth in jobs and the economy.

All of these accomplishments were completed despite the opposing political party’s sworn oath that their main purpose was not to help the people of their country, but to assure they took power back by making the President a one-term leader by doing whatever they could to stop anything he wanted to do to improve the lives of his countrymen and women.

Now it is election time again.  The opposing party, who was responsible for most of the mess the President had been cleaning up, now has a new standard bearer to run against the President, a person called the Opponent.  

Now picture the Opponent as coming from privilege, who is out of touch with those in his country who work for a living.  The Opponent made quite a fortune buying business and sucking all the profit out of them for himself and leaving the hulk of the business to try and survive, many times causing the loss of jobs of his fellow countrymen and women who had to work for a living.  The Opponent in his quest for power, took whatever position on the issues that he believed at the time he was taking such positions, that he believed would assist him in his quest for power. In fact, he became the candidate with the most flip-flops on issues that the country had ever seen.  The Opponent made it clear that he did not care for 47 percent of his own countrymen and women who he believes do not want to work, but only take from the government because they feel they are victims.  The Opponent continuously lied and distorted facts about the President and rallied support with the use of fear and whipping up anger at the President for imagined wrongs he claimed the President was responsible for.  The Opponent’s distortion of the President’s record became legendary.  The Opponent refused to show his tax returns to his fellow countrymen and women as all candidates have done for the longest time.  The Opponent’s rich and spoiled wife announced to her fellow countrymen and women that they were not entitled to any more information about the business of her husband, the Opponent, even though he was running on presenting himself as a savior of the country because of his business skills.  The Opponent promises that he will bring millions of jobs to his country without details, even though his record as governor of a state showed that he was 47^th in job creation.  The Opponent made promises about bringing jobs to the country, even though he said publically that he likes to fire people.  The Opponent claims he wants to keep jobs in his country when at the same time his own company that he co-founded is sending good jobs to foreign countries so the Opponent can further line his already bulging pockets.  The Opponent does not remove support for candidates who attack women’s rights.  The Opponent does not condemn his own party’s plans to suppress the vote with draconian laws, voter intimidation and vote stealing.  The Opponent has insulted many of the country’s world allies with undiplomatic statements and demonstrated little knowledge of world affairs and the working of his country’s military.  Most of all, by most accounts, the Opponent shows an aggressive personality that makes him so unlikable that his party spends many dollars trying to portray the Opponent as being more human.

Now, even with all of these facts available to the country’s voters, the polls show the President and the Opponent are tied, that’s right, they are in a dead heat.

Now I want to ask you to imagine one more thing.  I want you to imagine that the President is White and the Opponent is Black.  And one more thing - try and imagine that the polls would be still be tied.

(My apologies to John Grisham and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman from A Time to Kill).