Suppose you're in the prime of your life, have obtained great power, prestige and position within some highly structured demi-religious organization and then you realize that you're out of place. Several events and a set of sincere, intelligent and wise missionaries have convinced you that you need to leave and join a different group. You realize that this new group more closely resembles what you believe. You realize that in joining it, you will possibly be vilified, hated and abandoned by your family, friends and supporters, but you convert anyway. You leave the Republican party and become an Independent (or worse, a Democrat)!
At least 70% of Utahns should understand that such a decision takes great courage, but apparently the majority of Utahns believe Senator Jim Jeffords is a traitor to his Country.
I say hooray for Senator Jeffords. I mean, outside of Utah1, what does it really mean these days to be a Democrat or a Republican? Answer: Little more than whether you prefer the retreating view of a donkey or an elephant. Does it therefore surprise anyone that a single senator decided to shift loyalties and thereby channel the rivers of power to his door? Does it mean that Senator Jeffords went to bed a gun-toting, love-it-or-leave-it isolationist, far-right-wing religious-zealot and woke up the next morning a pinko, socialized-medicine-supporting, big-government-loving liberal? No. What he gave up was a suffocating, powerful support structure, but his ideals, philosophies and votes will remain the same.
Although I see the practical need of the support of one or the other side of our entrenched two-party-system, I would bet that a lot of Americans feel like I do--we don't feel comfortable with the zealots hanging out in either party and sometimes feel like we're choosing between the party of Mussolini or the party of Lenin instead of between the party of Lincoln and the party of FDR.
What is surprising is that more politicians on both sides of the isle don't jump ship. They don't because politics isn't about innovation, doing what's right for everyone; it's about, well, politics. You scratch our backs and we'll scratch yours. So if you find yourself wearing your fingers to the bones but with a back-load of itches, (like Senator Jeffords), or the doormat of a honey dipper, (like Senator Jeffords), what are you going to do? You are going to move.
What Americans should understand is that because of the way "We The People" vote, all politics is local and the only citizens Senator Jeffords is accountable to are the citizens of the State of Virginia. Hence, only when Virginians have the opportunity to vote him in or out will it be known from a political standpoint whether or not Senator Jeffords is a genius or a fool. Regardless, whatever they decide, from a human standpoint Senator Jeffords should still go down in history as a very clever, courageous man--perhaps foolish--but still courageous.
1 To be Republican means you at least say that, "I attend The Church, I'm pro family and pro education but I'm anti-big government and anti-crime (Duh, who isn't? Answer by some Utahns: A Democrat)
Loren M. Lambert
June 15, 2001 ©
