RICHMOND — You keep hearing it: “I don’t like either of them.”
You don’t have to — like either, that is. It’s not as if you’re inviting them for dinner. But the reality is that this is what you’ve got. And, basically, anyone who wants to have a say in the nation’s future must figure out which one he/she/they likes more or dislikes less.
But you need to vote. Apparently some American voters are considering the line of least resistance, rather than do the reading and listening that will help them choose between two old guys who want to be president.
They’ll abdicate and vote for one of the so-called “third party” candidates. “Thirds” are always an interesting bunch, each of them asserting that he or she can win the presidency and always denying that they are “spoilers.”
But they are spoilers. Ralph Nader was an egotistical spoiler, Ross Perot was a fascinating spoiler, Jill Stein is a perennial spoiler. They tip the scale, and when someone votes third party, he/she/they cannot know which way the scale will tilt.
Holding some of the weights this time is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose famous family has backed away from his candidacy. He’s against vaccines and in favor of various conspiracy theories.
Does the third-party voter give the former president a virtual vote, or hand one to the present president? The pundits will torture this subject from now until November.
Some of the unenthusiastic will elect to stay home. That’s a decision of the indecisive. At a birthday party of 6- or 7-year-olds here years ago, pizza was followed by ice cream, with many flavors available.
Some of the kids quickly made a choice, and then a girl said, “I don’t care.” How pleased was I when my daughter said, “You have to care. My mom won’t take that answer.” I loved that. She’s still decisive.
You need to care. It’s your obligation as an American, with rare exceptions.
One of those was a man I met on a long-ago election day in New York. My roommate was always befriending outliers and bringing them to our apartment, and this one was Steve, older than us, emigrated from Poland and a new citizen. I asked where he had voted.
“Didn’t,” he said. “Why not?” I said, astonished at this man who had embraced our country. “Because I didn’t have to,” he answered.
And we understood — he had been part of the Nazi forced-labor crews in his native country, working in a munitions factory where the enslaved tested torpedoes.
If someone said it was time to vote, you voted. And, he told us, that the only way for the men to rebel was to leave out a rivet or some minor part in hopes the torpedoes would pass the tests, but not work.
More than 30 percent of potential voters didn’t bother in the last presidential election, and few of them had Steve’s kind of reason to stay home. And if they’d voted absentee, early, by mail or in person — so many convenient choices — their filled-in oval had the power to change or enhance the outcome.
For me, this time, it’s simple. I am perturbed about the fact that we’ve ended up with no passing of the baton to a new generation of leaders. But faced with these two, one who loves chaos and himself and one who likes reason and all of us, it will be easy to fill the little oval with the special pen.
As Robert Hubbell, a think-better writer, put it last week, “We are in the capable hands of a president who rises to the moment without drama, self-inflicted controversy, or ego … [and] who leads with a steady hand while surrounded by competent advisers.”
I choose true over false, hire over fire, respect over scorn and reason over rant.