08/15/13: Change begins with us

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead

A RECENT LETTER to the editor, in a few words, captured the sentiment of an increasing number of voters: “We need strong leadership at every level to give us some hope that change can happen if we work at it hard and have patience. But what are we to do?”

The quote from Mead gives us a little direction. But to change the world, we have to start at the bottom and work our way up.

We will have an opportunity this fall.

The entire 100-member Virginia House of Delegates is up for election. Unfortunately for us, only 56 of the seats are contested. While I bemoan the fact that 44 delegates will automatically be re-elected, there’s nothing to be done about that now. Now is about the 56 contested races.

We have long been conditioned to pay attention only to horse races — those contests that are competitive — and to ignore those that are not.

Last week, Geoffrey Skelley of Sabato’s Crystal Ball published a list of 19 such races, meaning that the other 37 contests are all but over. Just two of those 19 are in Hampton Roads, both Peninsula districts.

One way to look at this is to say that, three months before the election, we are down to a mere 19 percent of the House seats being competitive.

Another way to look at it is that we’ve got work to do in the 37 other contests. Every race with more than one candidate is an opportunity for us to make a difference.

Candidates are often told there are three things they must do to enhance their chance of success: invest time, raise money, and engage and work with people. Voters, meanwhile, are mostly told to just show up on Election Day.

In our increasingly iPad world, we consume only the information that is pushed to us. That’s why we talk about only two candidates for governor, instead of all three who will be on the ballot. Yes, Virginia, there is an alternative.

But if we want things to be different, we have to do our own time-money-people thing.

We have to invest our time, seeking out information about the candidates. We have to give our money — whether it be $10 or $1,000 — to help the candidates get out their message. We have to be the people who volunteer for the candidates and the people who talk to our friends and neighbors about them.

It is simply not enough to just be a voter. We have a responsibility — to ourselves, to our fellow citizens — to be so much more than that.

The national meme a few years ago was that Tip O’Neill’s edict that “All politics is local” was dead, replaced with “all politics is national.”

I vehemently disagree with that notion — and if you follow what is going on in the states across the country, you should, too. Our ability to effect change is directly connected to how close government is to us: the closer it is, the greater our effect.

We have elections in Virginia every year. We have the opportunity every year to be activist voters, to help shape what we want our government to be.

Collectively, we are far larger than Mead’s small group. And we don’t have to change the whole world, just our little piece of it.