Last week’s election shows that civic spirit is very much alive in our community. The large number of candidates, who gave up their time and money over the course of the last few months to meet voters and state their positions only makes our community better.
When listening to the candidates, voters could hear that there are varied solutions to the same problem.
Quite frankly, open discussion of the issues is the basis of our democracy. Recognizing a problem, debating the solutions and then voting for the candidate that offers, in the voters’ mind, the best solution is what democracy.
All candidates are to be congratulated for putting their names on the ballot.
Theodore Roosevelt said it best:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”