Do you remember The Andy Griffith Show? While I had a little girl crush on his red-haired son Obie, Sheriff Taylor of Mayberry won my trust as a caring leader with a soft spot for the underdogs. Regardless of the circumstances, he always served his community with integrity and compassion, listening to all sides of an argument before meting out evenhanded advice or restitution. He was never one to stoop to divisiveness and deception. Call me naive, but that’s the sort of leader I’m looking for at the ballot box.
This country is not without examples of compassionate leaders. Martin Luther King counseled love and nonviolence, stating, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Or Jimmy Carter, arguably our kindest president, who said during his initial presidential campaign, “A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful and restrained.” Barak Obama too, led with eloquence and decency. Just this week, at a rally in Detroit, he stated, “If we don’t return to some of those old-fashioned virtues of honesty and integrity and kindness and compassion, values that can be found in every religion, every tradition, if we don’t rediscover those values, we will continue to fester in anger and division.”
As voters, we can intentionally support moral, earnest candidates who will weld their positions with common decency and empathy. I know I’m not alone in wanting my vote, my one precious vote, to go to the trusted few who step into the fraught political arena because they believe in humane treatment for all. If they pass that test, I don’t care if they’re Republican or Democrat; they have my vote.
Unfortunately, they are up against a political movement that takes perverse pride in exploiting their vulnerabilities and histories, even dragging up childhood horrors. And with the help of the media (which seems to relish these discoveries), secrets best kept hidden are laid bare, or perverted into some dark half-truth. And don’t most of us have secrets? Live long enough, and we’re all susceptible to some kind of ruin.
Then there’s the obvious double-standard. When a Democrat candidate stands accused of a perceived impropriety, the immediate response from the media and the republican party is gleeful and malicious. Use a private email server, and it’s “lock her up.” Choose the wrong words during a moment of frustration, and your behavior is labeled as “deeply offensive and disturbing.” God forbid you’re accused of gaming the system, as so many Republicans do through gerrymandering, reducing voting locations in poor neighborhoods, and financing spoiler candidates, as they’re doing with Eric Hafner, a convicted felon serving time in the State of New York, who’s on the ballot for Alaska’s single US. House seat, despite having no ties to Alaska. But as a Democrat, that could get you prosecuted by both the State and the U.S. Department of Justice. And no, it has not escaped my notice that all these examples involve women. Conversely, bad behavior by republican men is written off as politics as usual.
I still trust that the Sheriff Taylor types are out there, and I vote accordingly. That’s all any of us can do. And I believe we have decent folks on the ballot this year in Alaska. I’ve met several of them at small gatherings, or in community centers with 100 boisterous, cheering voters. They grasp our hands, listen intently for the minute or two we have with them, and offer up a brief insight before turning toward the next outstretched hand. They meet us where we are, at eye-level, asking us to trust them, and so we do.
“I have every confidence that Alaskan voters know what they’re doing, and I believe in the rule of law and free and fair elections. I have all the faith that this is going to get sorted out in the right way.”
~ Mary Peltola