The Urgency of Involvement

One thing I learned from my involvement in the presidential election campaign last year. What I learned is the reason why I want to continue getting involved in the political process. What I learned is that the closer elections get, the less effective we are in getting our message across to our voters and getting our candidates elected.

During the feverish campaign (not only here in Miami-Dade but also in Forsyth County, NC.) to get then Senator Obama elected to the Presidency, we knock on many doors where we were made aware of one reality. The “potential” voters we called on were in desperate need to get either more information, get clarification on certain important issues, or just in need of being reassured that things would eventually get better if we won the presidential election.

The pressure then was to knock on as many doors as possible, to get as many people as possible to the polls. However, the lack of knowledge about the issues, the cynicism about the political process, and many times just the need for reassurance, kept many people away from the voting booth. In many cases, a little bit of information about an issue, a short explanation about a doubtful point, or the clear identification of how the opposition mixed myth with reality, was sufficient to get the voter on our side.

That is why I believe in the urgency of involvement, and in the need to make every possible tool available to us useful for the purpose of educating, informing, and gaining support. Congressional elections are already closer than we imagine, and our effort to get the message across has not started.