03/05/15: Be a martyr for the cause

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

A EULOGY may seem to be an unlikely place for words of wisdom, but one delivered Tuesday was an exception. Former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth eulogized his protégé, Missouri state auditor and gubernatorial candidate Tom Schweich, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Danforth, an Episcopal priest, spoke about taking the high road, bullying, and the politics of personal destruction. Available online, http://vjp.me/1GS3ngL, it is a must-read.

I couldn’t help but think of my godmother — the closest thing I had to a grandmother — when Danforth mentioned, with palpable anguish, his sense that Schweich may have felt all alone on the high road he had always urged him to take. It is quite a contradiction to urge someone to always do the right thing but leave it to someone else to actually do the work.

My godmother’s admonition to never be “a martyr for the cause” sounded much like Danforth’s recommendation to Schweich, which boiled down to “let somebody else do it.”

“It” in this case was confronting anti-Semitism. Schweich had been the target of a whisper campaign that he was Jewish, and he wanted to confront it. Whisper campaigns have one purpose, as Danforth correctly pointed out: to profit from bigotry. If no one steps up to condemn it — to be the martyr for the cause — it continues unabated.

Viewers of recent episodes of “Downton Abbey,” in a case of life imitating art, have been shown how to speak against anti-Semitism. Whatever form it takes, be it religion, race, gender or some other characteristic, bigotry should not be tolerated.

While whisper campaigns may reach a small but critical segment of the electorate, campaign ads reach a wider audience. Schweich had been attacked for his physical appearance in a radio commercial. He was called “a little bug.” Danforth called it for what it was: an act of bullying.

We don’t tolerate bullying in other areas, so why should politics be any different? It’s not a matter of having thin skin, as some would like to think. It’s not a matter of “that’s just politics.” It’s a question of acceptable behavior in a polite society. Bullying simply does not meet the criteria.

Whisper campaigns and bullying are what we have come to expect in politics. Negative campaigns are pursued because they are effective — in turning out supporters while encouraging non-supporters to stay at home. It’s not a matter of just winning; candidates seek to destroy their opponents in the process.

It is no wonder, then, that fewer and fewer bother to vote.

Every person who seeks public office deserves our respect for being willing to serve us. Each is attempting to make things as good as they can be; what separates them is the vision on how to get there. Our choice of one candidate over another should be made on the basis of their stances on the issues, not what party they belong to or what their religion, race or gender is. The winner earns the opportunity to serve, but the non-winner doesn’t lose; rather, he comes back into our communities to continue the very work he was doing when he decided to run for office. These people remain our neighbors, our colleagues and our friends. The politics of personal destruction is wholly unwarranted.

All 140 seats in the General Assembly will be on the ballot in November. In between, let’s all be martyrs for the cause, one so eloquently described by Danforth:

“Let’s decide that what may have been clever politics … will work no longer … politics as it now exists must end, and we will end it. And we will get in the face of our politicians, and we will tell them that we are fed up, and that we are not going to take it anymore.”