Editor, Times-Dispatch: I just received my first mailing from George Allen's campaign disparaging Webb's 1979 stand on women in the military. Allen should be reluctant to go to the past. I was a state employee when he was governor. I remember him treating state employees like dogs.Zaniness raises its head again, as one reader seems to forget that Allen's entire ad campaign is based on words from nearly 30 years ago. In the same batch of letters, Sandra Steidele, of Midlothian says we should let bygones be bygones.I distinctly remember the first four months of his reign when no matter where you were in middle or upper management (corrections, highway, mental health, environment) everything shut down at noon on Friday. Employees just sat at their desks waiting to be fired. Few went to lunch because they didn't know if they would have a job when they came back.
Allen went into his campaign stating that state employees were leeches. There was a meanness to him that was clearly apparent to the state employees. He still has that mean streak.
Editor, Times-Dispatch: It must be a slow news day when you have to print an article about something someone said 30 years ago. What Senator George Allen did or didn't do then is not what counts. Everybody does something when he is young, and it's only by living and learning that we become better people.Allen is an honorable man who doesn't deserve this kind of stupid attack. Let's listen to what he has to say now and judge him on his words and actions in the present.
Richard F. Hawkins of Richmond takes Steidele's advice, and concludes that the present is George Allen's defining moment.
There are many defining moments in a particular pol's campaign. Chappaquiddick for the senior senator from Massachusetts. The "tank" episode for that same state's Michael Dukakis. And most recently, the scream heard 'round the world for Howard Dean. Allen's defining moment is macaca. And it is just as devastating as the others.Allen's moment tells the voters of Virginia who he really is (or at least, who he really can be). I don't even concern myself with whether macaca is actually a racist word. It's use was unquestionably designed to belittle S. R. Sidarth and to roundly embarrass him in front of a crowd of people. It was followed by the even more damning moment when Allen smugly said, "Welcome to America."
The entire event was one of those rare moments (captured, like almost all the others, on real-time video) when we are allowed to look beyond all of the canned slogans and speeches and see the candidate for who he really is. At that point we can truly ask (as we did with Dukakis and Dean) whether this is the kind of person we want as our elected official. Not this voter.
What kind of public officials do we need?
Now that the campaign season is in full swing, it’s a good time for all concerned citizens and voters to reflect on what type of officials we should elect at the national level in November’s elections. No candidate can be ideal. But some traits should earn our votes.
1. Intelligence: We need a candidate who not only is more intelligent than most of us but who also can seek the counsel of other intelligent individuals. We have had too many years of leadership by those who don’t respect different cultures and peoples.
2. Honesty: We need a candidate who will not brazenly lie or resort to deception on a regular basis. A candidate without honesty cannot win the electorate’s respect, loyalty, and confidence. Do you remember those Republicans who made their compact with America, a compact that included term limits? How many, including our own area Congressman, actually retired at the end of the term specified in the compact? Not too many, and for the basic reason that they had become too comfortable with all of the perks of the office.
3. National interest before self-interest and partisan interests: The candidate who gains our vote should be a true representative of all people. In addition, our representatives need to put the interests of the country or state ahead of their own self-interest of getting re-elected time after time. If the commonwealth in general doesn’t thrive, then neither will most of us.
4. Maturity and responsibility: The country needs a candidate who admits to being human like the rest of us, and, as a result, accepts full responsibility for all of his actions and can honestly admit to making mistakes and demonstrate a willingness to change course when a policy has resulted in disastrous consequences.
5. Political ideology or philosophy: It’s logical for us to elect candidates whose positions on issues of import are similar to our own, and to hope that those individuals will vote fairly consistently. However, we are also well-served by those individuals who are willing to put their consciences above ideology or political party.
6. Reality: The country needs candidates who are willing to exist in and accept reality.
7. Real leadership: The most desirable candidate is one who is willing and able to make the difficult decision, not unnecessarily delegating difficult decisions (such as withdrawing from Iraq) to one’s successors, and unafraid to ask sacrifices of the nation when it is appropriate to do so. Anybody less is a despicable coward.
While I may not be your pastor instructing you how to vote in the November elections, I would nevertheless maintain that, if you give serious thought to these and other characteristics or traits that should be held by desirable candidates, we will begin to again elect individuals who will advance the country’s best interests and who will start turning this country around for the better. If we fail to do so, then we alone are responsible for the country’s continued decline from great power status. There is nobody else to blame, and the shame rests with us.
Christopher Millson-Martula
Lynchburg