With a blank page staring back at me, I find myself, for perhaps the first time in my life, moving sports to the periphery of my life. Tonight’s task was supposed to be a recap of the Tribe’s convincing victory over Towson in football this weekend. However, on this early Monday morning, the only words that I can write or feel compelled to write regard tomorrow’s election. Tomorrow, November 4, 2008, has shaped up to be perhaps the most important Tuesday since, seven years ago, at approximately 8:45 on, September 11, two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, one hijacked airplane crashed into the Pentagon, and another hijacked airplane crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Not since that Tuesday, now almost a decade ago, has America been at such an impasse. Seven years after 9/11, after that fateful morning, we find ourselves in the midst of two wars, in the dregs of a financial crisis, and on the brink of four years of the rule of a new Commander-In-Chief. Regardless of one’s personal politics, there is no doubting the quintessential significance of tomorrow’s presidential election.
In the next 48 hours, particularly in Virginia, we will find ourselves bombarded with information from all sides of the political spectrum. Support will be sent, negativity nattered, praise proffered and when all is said and done, a victor crowned, vindicated by the vote.
And yet, considering all of this, I cannot help but think that far too many of us, of the students of the College of William and Mary, of us, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, of us, the people of these United States of America, are not giving tomorrow the weight it deserves.
Tomorrow is not about television ads. Tomorrow is not about campaigns. Tomorrow is not about FOX or CNN, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Tomorrow is not about democrats or republicans. Tomorrow is about us. It is about, in the most basic of ways, us doing our duty as Americans. It is about us each, using the single most powerful tool any civilian citizen of any country in the world has ever had; the power of one vote.
The other day a friend of mine told me he wouldn’t be voting. He said it wasn’t because he had forgotten to register; it wasn’t because he wasn’t informed; it wasn’t even that he was apathetic. It was just that he didn’t want to vote. For anyone who has had that thought or any thought in a similar vein, I ask you, please, think back to that Tuesday seven years ago. Think about how it made you feel.
I know I remember sitting in class, Earth Science, at my desk, wondering, “What can I do?” I remember feeling so small, so excruciatingly small, as I wondered if my father, who works in downtown Manhattan, had taken the Subway to the World Trade Center that morning, just as he did every morning. I remember sitting there, staring out the window, thinking not only what could I do, but what could anybody do?
The answer to that question, to anyone who has had that feeling, is vote. I don’t care who you vote for. You can vote for Bob Barr, you can vote for William Jennings Bryan. But what you can’t do is not walk into that booth. We only get so few opportunities to do something, anything, for our country. Only once, every four years, do Americans even get the opportunity to vote for a president; in fact, for many of us, this is our first opportunity to vote in a general election. It is, for all undergraduates (and probably most graduates), the first time we will be able to cast a ballot that doesn’t have the name Bush or Clinton on it. And most of all, it is our best opportunity to be heard.
Lately, it seems to me that America has become a nation of “I”s. A lot of people have a lot to say about themselves. This election has been no different, as over and over again both candidates have promised “I Will” this and “I Won’t” that. Only once, every four years, is America a nation of “we.” On November 4, 2008, America will be heard, and our voice, in unison, will ring out definitely saying “we.” It is not a choice; it is a privilege, one which we owe to many people to take advantage of. We owe it to the world, we owe it to our country, and we owe it to each other. But most of all, we owe it to ourselves. So, William and Mary, on Tuesday, November 4, please, cast your vote. Because tomorrow, we will be heard.