What Are
You Waiting For?
By Maryann Vazquez
Whenever I canvass or phonebank, I hear
comments like “thank you for doing this,” “I have to get more involved,” “I
need to pay attention more,” “It is so sad what is happening to our country,” and
I literally want to scream! We are in a national crisis; the time for you to
get involved is now. The need for you to volunteer is now. The energy it takes
to run a campaign is huge. It is a tremendous amount of work. I don’t think the
electorate knows what is involved, nor do they know how much power they have.
You, my fellow citizens, have the most power of all: it is you, your vote and
your commitment to change that will set us on a Blue Course. Yet, you must be
engaged in the political process to harness the power of the vote. It requires
each one of us to give up something to make it happen.
What more do you need to see, before you
realize there is nothing more important that you must do right now than getting
involved this election? It’s less than 60 days away, people! Our Democracy is
dying, people! I am not engaging in hyperbole when I say we are on the road to
Fascism. Free Speech is being challenged, do you sit there and say nothing? The
FBI and the DOJ are under attack, do you sit there and do nothing? Children are
in prison camps. Our waterways are being polluted, there is no clean drinking
water for many U.S citizens. I don’t about you, but I can’t take two more years
of this stress. It is our responsibility to send the adults into the room to
take charge. Our Democratic slate of candidates is our only hope. (Or is that
Obi Wan Kenobi?)
When Democrats get out the vote, they win,
because more people lean to the left than lean to the right. But, if Democrats
do not get out and vote nothing good happens, nothing changes for the better.
People are disgusted and apathetic with everything happening in Washington,
then they get lazy, they make excuses, they think their vote doesn’t matter. Each
vote matters and each vote is needed. Many of the County Board and judicial
races could be won by just a few votes. But we need volunteers to get out the vote,
door knock, phone-call, stuff bags, donate, poll watch, man the office and give
out signs. No more complacency: it is a
lot of work to educate an electorate. Stop by the Casten for Congress office;
even as busy as it is, they still need help. There is more energy than usual
around this election; typically, about 1% of the population gets involved in
election efforts, but current estimates place it at closer to 2%. Even so – that is still only 2%! We
need still more people involved!
All the other candidates need help as
well, even JB Pritzker needs help! (I will never believe a poll again.)
Voter engagement and participation has
never been more important than it is now.
Now is not the time for ego, nor for
in-fighting, nor for eating our own. Our enemy is no other Democrat. We are a
team, we are a family, we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. We
share similar values, but above all we are saddened by the direction the
country is moving. Each one of us should put our nose to the grindstone and get
a tail wind behind us, because a wave is created by energy: and that energy is YOU.
If you want a blue wave, what are you waiting for?
