yesterday was the virginia primary election. i honestly wasn’t very well-prepared; after friends messaged to peer pressure, i read up a bit and stopped to vote before my book club’s meeting.
however, talking with a close friend of opposed political persuasion about the election was one of my better conversations of the day. we always dance and tell stories back and forth and find patches of overlap that reflect our common values. as much as i’m working on learning to confront and argue (I WANT TO BE BRAVER IN DEFENDING MY TRUTHS), i love this form of engagement, it’s a piece of why she’s one of my favorites. i asked if she was voting, she let me know that there wasn’t a republican primary, and she wasn’t going to start voting in the democratic ones unless virginia turns so blue that it’s her only genuine venue of political participation. i mused a little bit on MY candidates.
our point of agreement for the day was this: we both want very different things from our legislators than we do from our executives. a legislator, a tiny piece of a big governing body, CAN be a big voice for the more extreme points of view, bring attention to things that the rest of the group might not otherwise see. we’ll vote for them there. executive branch, one-issue folks aren’t going to cut it for either of us. we both *want* more wisdom, more experience, more ability to build coalitions and work across lines to get things done. that hasn’t necessarily been a popular viewpoint across years and years of people running for government by campaigning -against- government — the businesspeople who count it as a point of pride that they don’t have insider experience. yet the amount of information that government has to process now is so giant! are our institutions up to modern complexity even when we’re hiring by matching resume to job? one of my favorite soapboxes is ranting about virginia having a part-time legislature covered by a fragile press system that’s frequently too hollowed out to have a state bureau… i love my local paper, but even with good richmond coverage and a relatively lively interest and knowledge of what governmental powers lie at which levels, *i* often lose track of the horse race. i have to work and live in addition to reading news!
which leads to… campaigning by channeling frustration with government has been popular for a long time now. how COULD we start moving the narrative back toward treating elections like a serious hiring process? how do we make it worth staying informed enough to make choices that lead to a government that We The People *do* like?