For the past 20 years, I’ve had a sit-down discussion with a couple of people whom I consider to be my “opposite number” in the Democrat Party.
They are both wonderful and delightful people, and pillars of our community. They just travel in a different political orbit than I do.
They are both patriotic, involved, and want the best for our City, County, State and Nation. We have the same concerns. Exactly the same. A fact I find completely remarkable.
The difference is they lean toward big government solutions, and true to form, I want less government and fiscal responsibility. We all recognize that the optimal solution lies somewhere in between and is forged through compromise.
These conversations start exactly the same way – how are the kids? How’s the wife or husband? Your health? There’s never a disagreement when it comes to family. That’s the easy part.
If you didn’t know each of our political proclivities, you would see a couple of old friends breaking bread and sharing stories. Which we are. I can’t begin to explain how much I appreciate these confabs. These people are just like me, they just have “D” instead of an “R” after their name.
They are thoughtful, considerate, insightful, and I don’t think either of them ever pulled a straight ticket lever in the voting booth. I know that I haven’t.
We are all about the candidate, on an individual basis. The answer is who would be the best person for the job? The question is repetitive, and occurs every two, four or six years. Slightly more for Judges. And it’s about competence. I can show you politicians who prevail in light of being truly awful human beings because they are good at the job.
We all know doctors who are exactly that way. I know you’ve heard someone say, “He’s an amazing surgeon, but he has terrible bedside manner.”
The same is true of politicians.
If the levers that I, or either of my friends pulled in the voting booth ever got back to our respective parties, there would be hell to pay. Thank the framers for the secret ballot.
We are all a little bit of an echo chamber because of the people with whom we spend political time, but there is something much more important, and that’s doing the right thing. Unfortunately, defining the “the right thing” can be very, very difficult, especially when there are multiple correct answers representing different ways of doing the right things for people.
This makes the conversation that much more challenging when we get down to brass tacks. In one of our early get togethers, they said exactly what I had to say this past week – having a state legislature and public works so completely dominated by one party is not a healthy state of affairs.
In other words, their point of view from 20 years ago when the Democrats dominated West Virginia politics is exactly the same as my point of view is today. It’s just from a different orbit.
That was gospel truth two decades ago when the Democrats were in control, and it is today with the Republicans in control. Remember that in West Virginia, the hold the Republican Party has today on all levels is unparalleled and that means GOP members are in a position the Democrats only dreamed about decades ago when they were at the height of their power.
Just like then the current situation will lead to excesses, and those will most certainly come from the extremes. We can’t let the lunatic fringe take over.
As for my friends, one of the two is stepping back from their party because they believe the Democrats have stopped representing the positions held by the majority of West Virginians. The other is stepping up for exactly the same reason.
What’s funny is I’m stepping up in my party for, you guessed it, the same reason.
My friend believes he has value to offer in bringing his party back to reality; back to truly representing the folks in middle of the bell curve where most people are philosophically.
Me too.
We travel in different orbits, but we want the same thing. The end result in politics is not about wins, losses and ties. It’s about doing the right things.
I know in the privacy of the voting booth, we will each do the right thing.
