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Trust
the People
Here's
a novel idea. Maybe politicians should tell people
what they really believe and let voters
choose the candidates whose views most reflect their
own.
Travel
around Virginia
as I do and you’ll find more interest in the state
elections that will be held in 2005 than in the
national
elections just a few weeks away. Voters are itching to have their say about
what kind of state they want.
Virginians
aren’t of one mind on vital state issues.
They have already begun choosing up sides,
particularly on the issue of state spending and
taxes.
This
is the way politics and governing should work.
The voters — not a bunch of elites or
insiders — put their imprint on policy by choosing
between candidates representing different viewpoints
on important questions.
What
Virginians deserve between now and the 2005
elections is an honest debate — the kind they were
denied in 2001 and 2003.
This is largely due to Gov. Mark R.
Warner’s refusal to be candid and straightforward
with the voters.
The
candidates for statewide office and for the Virginia
House of Delegates in 2005 can look forward to a
much more energized and skeptical electorate than
they’ve seen in recent elections.
Voters have tired of politicians who say one
thing to get elected, then change position
afterward. They’re
tired of platitudes and pandering.
When
voters feel they have a real choice, turnout is
higher. When
they realize that elections provide an opportunity
to hold incumbents accountable, they tend to become
more involved.
There
is no guarantee that this heightened interest in the
2005 elections will remain at the current level for
another year. My
guess, though, is that interest actually will
increase as a result of political clashes likely to
occur at the 2005 session of the Virginia General
Assembly. Additional
taxes will be proposed during that session.
Other fights over education, health care and
transportation are certain to draw attention.
Candidates
who think they can breeze into the 2005 elections
without taking clear positions on important issues
are likely to be disappointed.
The people of this Commonwealth have been
called “selfish” (by then President Clinton in
1997) and “gullible” (by mega-developer Til
Hazel in 2002). By
and large, they are neither.
It
really doesn’t matter what they’re called.
The voters are, in the final analysis, in
charge of the government in our political system.
What voters have seen too often from some
politicians and elites is utter disdain for this
aspect of our system.
We’ll
see over the next 14 months which candidates truly
trust the voters. Which
candidates will treat ordinary Virginians as if they
have the good sense to understand the policy choices
the Commonwealth faces and the wisdom to decide.
A
year ago, Gov. Warner refused to lay out his tax
plan before the 2003 elections.
He said it would only invite sound-bite
politicking. Even
if that were true, the governing scheme Virginians
went to war in 1776 with Mother England to secure
leaves the reins of power in the hands of the
voters, who are human and fallible.
The answer is not to hide information from
them or to conspire to deprive them of the
opportunity to make choices.
The answer is to sharpen the political debate
and let the voters decide.
In
his First Inaugural Address,
Jefferson
observed: “Sometimes it is said that man cannot be
trusted with the government of himself.
Can he, then, be trusted with the government
of others? Or
have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern
him?"
-- August
23,
2004
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