Reflections After Early Morning Voting

I cast my ballot at 6:15am this morning. I was groggy enough to not even realize that there were two ballot questions on the New Jersey ballot. Oh well.
I spread the wealth this morning and voted for potential officials in three different parties.
There were no lines, no fuss, no worries. Just a bunch of cranky old women in the morning, a happy Hispanic woman who guided me to my booth, and a lonely man who had been assigned the task of counting emergency ballots at the behest of the crank-in-charge.
My voting place is at the 3rd St. Volunteer Fire Department and I live on 2nd St. so it takes about two minutes to walk between my house and the polls. I didn’t notice much on my way to the voting booth, no one was outside yet, but on my way back I noticed ome McCain and Obama signs. That’s when it hit me how we propogate and sometimes overwhelmingly support people we really know little about. We convince ourselves voting records and biographical sketches supply us with enough information to make a good decision but in that moment of seeing signs in the lawns of people who have only seen a candidate on TV, or at best at a rally, it hit me that we don’t really know these people. Knowing incompasses actually meeting, conversing, living in fellowship with a person. Unless you have enough money or clout to hang with the likes of McCain or Obama you end up making a decision based on the information the media and the respective campaigns give you.

For both theological (explained here) and philosophical reasons I think we need to reflect on voting as a best guess, a vote that in reality will do little to influence the political climate of the coming four to eight years.  George W. Bush campaigned eight years ago as a compassionate conservative and through dramatic political events over eight years his administration has been characterized by big-government, debt, big spending, and incompetency.  No one would have guessed that.

We like to make politicians static and stamp them in history as unchanging persons.  They are people, just like you and me, who change their views and ideas about politics as well as sports, food, cars, and movies.  In normal life it everyone is encouraged to have an open mind and make decisions after careful thought and be open to changing one’s mind.  Being open to change is an important part of a person’s mature character, so say pastors, counselors, and psychologists.  Yet when we speak about politicians changing their minds we call them flip-floppers and crucify them.

Whoever wins today will not be carrying out their complete plans for government.  No president ever gets that opportunity.  They may even change their views on government.  They may have held on to those views all along but had their message massaged by dozens of aides, staff, and media-folk.  We don’t know.

We don’t know because we don’t know them.

So relax.  It’ll be alright.  Paul tells us to not worry about tomorrow.  So don’t!  Live for today, becuase we never know what will happen tomorrow in our own lives

Fun With Political Cartoons

Someone at work sent me this cartoon and I created the other version below it.  Must be bipartisan about these sorts of things!