How hard is it to choose your candidate before you head to the polls? Some people seem to be making it a lot harder than it should be.
Some years, choosing your candidate — the one you’ll support and vote for — can be more challenging. I wouldn’t dispute that. In fact, I might argue that it seems harder to find a candidate you truly love over the past few election cycles. But there comes a point when you have to make a choice.
You just have to do it.
I recently had a conversation with a loved one who told me of struggling over what to do at the polls.
This person doesn’t care for one of the candidates. But this person really can’t stand the other.
Well, it seems to me that the problem is solved. Only for them, the answer wasn’t so clear.
So I asked a few simple questions:
When it comes to the person you “really can’t stand”…
- Do you agree with that candidate’s policies?
- Do you believe the country as a whole would be better off with that person in office?
- Does that person’s moral positions align with your own?
Each answer, from what I could tell, seemed to be No.
Well, it seems to me that the problem is solved. Except, for some reason, it still wasn’t.
After all this time, this loved one still “isn’t sure” about one of the candidates. After all this time, this loved one should do more research. Early voting in my state began this week. Election Day is less than two weeks away.
I’m not sure when this loved one expects some magical epiphany to take place. But I suspect it’s probably not going to happen.
I get it. I’ve never been a fan of walking into the polling place with a plan to vote for the proverbial “lesser of two evils.” That’s not something a voter should ever want to do.
But as a writer, I know that almost no one is 100% good or 100% bad. Some have more of one or the other, it seems. And as more of a political centrist, I know that there’s almost certainly never going to be a candidate with whom I agree on everything. Our two-party political system doesn’t want that; that would too easily pave the way for a viable third option that could take votes from them.
Still, Election Day is coming. Quickly.
If you still haven’t figured out who you’re going to vote for, seriously: it’s time. Do your research. Make your vote count.
I am voting for the candidate that supports my family values and will bring the country forward, not backward into the ’50s.