By the Dawn's Early Light

As you or may not know (or care) once a week, on Wednesdays, these mutterings appear in the pages of The Bulletin, a daily newspaper based in Norwich, Connecticut, which is where I live. Because of their production deadlines, I wrote these words Sunday before Election Day. You’re reading them now, the day after Election Day. Pretty amazing especially if you don’t think about it. And when it comes to not thinking, I’m your guy.

Whether we already have final results or not at the national level and/or how long we'll wait for them (and patience is no longer an American value it seems), what we already do have are the consequences of the decisions we made, or chose to NOT make, when we voted. That's how this nation works and when you look at our history, our heartaches, and our triumphs, it has been, and is, a remarkable process of new beginnings and unending hopeful horizons.

Since my Mom and Dad taught me manners (and the set I have is still in pretty good shape because I seemingly hardly ever use them) let me start on an appreciative note: To all of those who sought office and campaigned tirelessly in the last weeks and months, thank you for your generosity of spirit. 

Congratulations to those of you who were elected and for those who weren't, there's still a role for you in all of our communities so thanks in advance for lending a hand. We have some rough days before us all, not just the Red States or the Blue States, but the United States. There's a reason why we call ourselves that-sometimes, it seems, we forget.

We voters have expectations of those whom we elect and those men and women, in turn, have responsibilities to us. We all also have obligations to one another: to speak clearly in articulating our wants, needs, and desires (and our ability and willingness to pay for them), and to listen to one another and the explanation for why, sometimes, a particular course of action was chosen (or not chosen). We have two ears and one mouth in that particular ratio for a reason: perhaps we could listen more and shout less.

In recent years, there's been far too little civility in our civic discourse with one another as we've opted to impugn character and denigrate integrity instead of debating, developing, evaluating, implementing, and improving one another's ideas. We've turned elections into popularity contests that no one seems to win. 

I can't help but fear if John Hancock and the Founding Fathers could see what we've made of this nation that some of them gave their lives for (even before we were a country), he'd insist on a bottle of Wite-Out while reaching for a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Right now, the first days after a national election, are traditionally the most hopeful time in the political calendar. At all levels of government, the next few mornings will be a little brighter because of the perception and belief in possibilities we created for ourselves yesterday. But we shouldn’t do more than pause before continuing to build the nation regarded as a beacon by so many around the world.

As that nation we may not, in the last decade or so, have been especially good at narrowing the gap between promise and performance. As we continue in this, our third century, as a democracy, we need to be mindful we could be approaching that moment when our "Missed Opportunity" becomes our "Last Chance".

We all have too much at stake to leave government to "somebody else"--we each need of us to become that somebody. Democracy is a contact sport-now that we’re suited up, it's time to get in the game.
-bill kenny