Let's Bring It Home

This afternoon I addressed and added messages to 50 postcards to residents of Georgia who have not yet registered to vote. It is part of a registration drive by The New Georgia Project in recognition of the fact that while the “New American Majority – people of color, those 18 to 29 years of age, and unmarried women - makes up 62% of the voting age population in Georgia, they are only 53% of registered voters.”

In addition to the information required for registration, the postcard tells recipients, “Georgia’s runoff election will decide who controls the entire U.S. Senate. That makes you one of the most POWERFUL voters in our nation’s history.”

While the New Georgia Project is non-partisan, I am not. I fervently hope that if any of these cards work, the individuals they inspire will register and vote as Democrats. Mitch McConnell, who has already announced that no Democratic agenda will succeed under his leadership, does not deserve a majority to do his bidding. Healing?  He appears to have no interest in bipartisan service in the best interests of our country but intends to repeat the pattern he established under Obama, obstructing anything and everything proposed by the White House.

There was a time in my life when I aspired to be a U.S. Senator. I thought of Senators as leaders who, responsible for domestic and foreign policy, could make positive changes here and abroad. I thought of the Senate as a noble calling.

Obviously, I chose a different, but in my mind no less noble path, where I was able to better the lives of one student, one family and one community at a time. What I have learned since my more naïve days of aspiring to the Senate is that the institution is only as noble as its members. Unfortunately, these days that is not very noble at all.