Every election there's a lot of walking to do, and there's all the door-knocking to deliver campaign literature to voters. I'm not the greatest "people person" when it comes to these kind of things. I'm not a sales type, I'm technical, in other words, a geek. (Although I LOVE that people have finally learned to appreciate us Geeks!) Believe me, I don't love knocking on doors and disturbing people. It's just the only way we currently have to let you know who your Democratic choices are and what they're about at this time.
Thankfully, I'm a fairly decent writer, which helps with an online format like this. I'm hoping that in the long-term, this blog becomes a good supplement to walking around and knocking on folks' doors. It also should be a good way for you to start finding your way around the Democratic world here in DuPage County, and SURPRISE, there actually are quite a few of us! I'm not exactly going to play the theme song from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but You Are Not Alone.
There's also a lot of time to put in planning such walks, recruiting election judges and helping them get settled so they can work on election day, trying to help Precinct Committeemen that are even newer than you, voting at County Party Meetings about once a month, going to monthly Township meetings and sometimes voting there, and quite a few other things.
This not being a paid position, I still have to work a full-time job, and have a life outside of politics. I'm married, so my lovely wife deserves to get my best time first, too.
Still, I find that this effort is worth it and rewarding. I'm doing my best to help shape a better life for everyone in the future. I'm putting in my energy and time trying to make things more fair and decent for the regular people who are my neighbors and fellow countrymen and women. It matters to me that things are good for the people around me, because if their quality of life is better, so is mine. It's far easier to be around people who feel generally happy and secure than people who are fearful and wondering if they'll be able to survive the next year.
Unfortunately, too many of us either abandoned or never started paying attention to the political world, most especially on a local level. That left the entire field wide-open to those who could afford to use money to leverage politicians, the kind of politicians who COULD be financially leveraged, and that brought us to the dreadful situation we face today.
Most of us who would be truly fair to one another have spent our time on our families and jobs, and tried to just ignore the strange and ugly thing that is making public policy and law happen. So now, we have the results of that disinterest. Financial systems that are no better than a rigged casino. Energy systems that are old, inefficient, dirty, and not as reliable as they should be. (In fact, the old power grid we have is a huge impediment to adding clean new power sources.) Foreign policy that is better at pushing people around than making their lives better so that everyone's lives are better, including ours. An economy that is more based on making and selling weapons than goods for peaceful use.
We have, in short, a big mess on our hands. The main reason for that is because we collectively haven't put our time in with regards to the lower levels of government that become the pool from which the upper levels of government are derived.
For me, taking on this duty is about putting in my time and energy. It's about pushing things toward a space where people don't have to fear the next year or the next decade. It's about making the ground we all stand on as stable and secure as possible.
The more people there are here at the local level working for this, the better chance we stand of getting similar people up to the top levels eventually.
I won't kid you. I have no intentions of running for higher office. I don't want it, and I don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Being a Precinct Committeeman is enough for me. But, there aren't enough Precinct Committeemen to go around. There are large numbers of these offices left open. There are many candidate slots for other local offices where there are no choices or few choices.
Too often we complain about the political structure we live under, and the people that make it up. Isn't it possible that's precisely because we've declined in large numbers to become part of that structure and change its makeup from within?
It's not like I have to put in forty hours per week to fulfill my duties as Precinct Committeeman. About five hours per week is probably pretty good. (Although a few weeks here and there can be busier.)
So, here's my Reason Of The Day To Be a precinct Committeeman: The more people like me that are in these offices, the more people like me who will eventually be in higher offices, and the more things will be eventually done in a way that I can not only agree with, but that I can take pride in.
That's what it's going to take to restore this country. A renewed sense of basic civic duty has to come before we'll have a well-run country.
After all, regardless of Party affiliation, for most of us, the end goal is to make a better life for all of us. So, if we don't want crooks and greedy people in office, let's not leave all the offices for crooks and greedy people.
All the best,
Dan
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