It Is Time to Vote

Column first appeared in Village Voices on October 28, 2008

At the Crossroads
By
Roland Tolliver

“Life is lived forward, but can only be understood backwards.” --Søren Kierkegaard

The nation is at a crossroads. Oil prices fluctuate and long lines at the gas pumps are happening in parts of our country. There is turmoil in the Middle East with continued concerns about Iran. The Republican candidate is a balding, white male, military veteran, who is trying to distance himself from a President with an abysmal approval rating. Saturday Night Live has lampooned a national candidate to the point of turning the party representative into a mockery. A vice-presidential candidate was selected to appease the conservatives. On the other side, a smooth talking liberal candidate is the nominee from the Democratic Party. He has little experience at the national or international levels, but has brought in a long-term U.S. Senator to cover his weaknesses. The economy is in the dumps with the possibility of inflation and depression both looming large. The Presidential election is just days away.

The year was 1976. Gerald Ford, the man who was appointed to the Presidency, was running against the upstart Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter. The nation wanted to distance itself from Richard Nixon, and anybody associated with him. Walter Mondale, the long-time Democratic Senator from Minnesota, was nominated as the Vice-Presidential candidate, seen as someone who could shore up the party’s ticket. Gerald Ford was lampooned by Chevy Chase of SNL, who made a career out of his one-note comedic bludgeoning of a single misstep on a runway in Austria, dismissing the fact that Ford was probably the most athletic President in history. Senator Bob Dole was the V.P. nominee, who appealed to the more conservative constituency.

It was my first election. I had turned eighteen that year. I was a political junkie from the time I was in the fourth or fifth grade, even to the point of charting the Electoral College votes the night of the 1968 election. My parents thought I was prescient when I predicted that Nixon would name Gerald Ford from our home state of Michigan as his Vice President when it was apparent that the disgraced Spriro Agnew would be leaving office. I was also torn in trying to make my first major decision as a voting adult.

Today we find a number of parallels to 1976. We have a tested politician who has chosen a more conservative candidate to be his running mate. We have an untested, but smooth-talking candidate, who has chosen a long-term Senator as his running mate to balance his inexperience in foreign affairs. We have the coming inflationary economy that is in a recession. Gas prices are fluctuating on an almost daily basis. Iran is threatening Israel and there is continued instability in the Middle East. And not the least is America’s desire to distance itself from an unpopular President and the other party doing its best to connect the Republican Presidential nominee and the current President for their own political gain.

The four years of the Carter administration were most-likely one of the lowest points in the history of our country’s standing in the world. We were perceived as weak. Our military was decimated by the desire to try and be the anti-war nation, having been disillusioned by the Vietnam War. Our economy soured and gas prices skyrocketed with long gas lines and rationing. The one international event that stands above any other during that time was the Iranian Hostage Crisis with the subsequent tragedy in the ill-fated rescue attempt. “Carter’s Blackest Day” was the headline in the daily paper in Munich (where I was studying) on April 25, 1980, the day after the failed “Operation Eagle Claw” and the death of eight of our finest soldiers in Iran the day before. And now Senator Biden informs us that if his running mate is elected President, he will be tested with an international crisis within the first six months of his Presidency.

The parallels are many and we have been informed many times throughout the years by Winston Churchill and others that if we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Despite President Bush’s misgivings and shortcomings, there has not been another attack on U.S. soil since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. We have not located Osama Bin Laden and perhaps we never will regardless of who is elected President. We are in an unpopular war, but when is war ever popular? The current candidates want to stop genocide and other atrocities in other parts of the world, and that was accomplished to a large degree in Iraq with the capture and ouster of Saddam Hussein, but due to the misguided pretenses of attacking terrorists in Iraq, this fact is often overlooked.

There is still much work to be done with the economy, in fostering world peace, in protecting innocent lives here and abroad, and protecting our own shores. Despite the campaign rhetoric and baseless promises for change, the winner will still have to work with Congress to pass any sweeping changes. As a country, we move more at the rate of an ocean liner than a speed boat when it comes to change. There is no modern-day prophet or single individual who accomplishes all he or she sets out to do and definitely not in four years’ time.

I voted in 1976 based on my enthusiasm of the moment. I went with the new guy, against my deeper gut feeling that I should vote for President Ford. I listened to the promises and the rhetoric. I was young and highly impressionable. I learned a valuable lesson that I have taken with me each subsequent election. I vote independent of party line locally, but have voted for a Republican for President since that impetuous decision in 1976. I have a feeling we may have another difficult lesson to learn in the next few years, but as a country we will survive either way.