Mixed Messages '04: First, Principles

Mixed Messages '04: First, Principles

by Editorial Board
Boston Globe
9/26/04

THERE ARE only five weeks left until the 2004 presidential election, and yet much of America is still waiting to hear the call.

This is not the call that shouts "Vote for me!" or begs for more cash, or attempts to rally a following based on how badly the opponents can be smeared. It is the call that asks people to be part of something greater than themselves, to build a nation more aligned with its democratic principles, to embrace a vision of what might be accomplished if people work together to make America a more respected citizen of the world.

Candidates may touch on these themes while slogging through overloaded campaign schedules in key precincts of strategic battleground states. But the words are barely heard on the national stage, and people who are living in what pollsters have deemed the "safe" red or blue states might easily feel as though the election is taking place in another country.

Part of the problem is a news media more eager to report controversy than inspiration. But the campaigns are also focused far too narrowly on percentage points, regional hot-button issues, and the imperative that a candidate must stay "on message" in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Ohio rather than speaking to the United States of America.

Voters are longing to hear that larger message. In Westford, Mass., 56-year-old David Kimball laments the "winner take all" mentality of campaigns and American culture in general and wants "to hear more about cooperation and coordination."

He is one of thousands of Americans participating in a program called "The People Speak," sponsored by the United Nations Foundation and 14 other organizations to foster discussion of the real issues facing the country. Kimball has organized a session on global security to be held Tuesday at the town library. On Oct. 13, Westford citizens will gather to talk about economics. This year 3,500 such meetings have taken place nationwide, and about 500 more are planned.

PBS is sponsoring a similar national effort called "By the People," and the group Americans for Informed Democracy is organizing dialogues on Islam, the environment, and the country's image in the world. So individuals are definitely engaged and thinking big, but the campaigns are often thinking too small.

"There's a lot of talk about national security," said Seth Green, a 24-year-old Yale University law student and democracy group coordinator. "That's not enough. I want to hear about how America can be a moral leader."

Green says people his age feel "skipped over" and that presidential candidates are "more reactionary than visionary."

Hear him, candidates, for he is the future. Inspire him -- and all of us -- by demanding that a nation follow its better angels. Sound the call. Sound the call. Sound the call. TOMORROW: Foreign trade's third rail.