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Campaign season ends

Like many of you, I am happy this political campaign season has come to a close. I’m not pointing my finger at any particular candidate for any particular office because it is my opinion that the vast majority are guilty of negative campaigning. As for the presidential campaign, a University of Missouri study shows that 68% of the Obama ads were negative and 62% of the McCain ads were negative.

And all I wanted was information on where each candidate stood on particular issues.

The fact is a president just doesn’t have the power to do some of the things both candidates promised in the heat of the campaign. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 1,000 times: we need to pay attention to who we elect to Congress. Congress writes bills. Congress decides how much and where the money goes. Congress has a greater impact on my life every day than does the President.

This is not to say that the presidency is not a very important position. It is. The President of the United States nominates Supreme Court justices. The President is in charge of the executive branch of government, which includes 15 departments – the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Interior, Labor, Justice, Homeland Security, Energy, and Transportation among them. The U.S. Trade Representative and Director of the Environment Protection Agency are included in the President’s Cabinet. These positions have a major and direct impact on agriculture in this country.

Over the course of this long and drawn out presidential campaign, I heard many people say “I don’t trust any of ’em,” referring to candidates for political offices at every level of government- from County Sheriff to State Governor to President of the United States of America.

So you ask “Why vote?”

You know, I believe that that attitude and level of complacency is at the heart of most of the problems we have in this country.

Not everyone has the privilege to participate in the government process the way we in the United States of America do. The 15th amendment, ratified in 1870, states “…the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But it was not until 1920 with the passage of a 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that women nationwide were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. One of my grandmothers was born that year- the other was born in 1917. Can you imagine the joy their mothers felt, knowing that theirs would be the first generation of women in this country to grow up, having that privilege?

Why vote?

I vote because it is an honor and a privilege and my right as a citizen of this great country.