Election Day is this coming Tuesday, November 8th and we encourage everyone who is eligible to vote to hit the polls. Who is eligible to vote? Everyone who lives in town, over the age of eighteen who has registered to vote is able. In fact, we believe it is your civic responsibility to vote in every election.
The question this year, like every year, is who to vote for? We have watched the various campaigns closely since the summer. At times, we have been impressed and at other times appalled. Throughout it all, we stand by our belief that negative campaigning has no place in Greenwich, and we have encouraged candidates to run on their record. You can have a record even if you have never run for office before; it can be volunteering, a business career, leadership in your church. It can be many things.
In this day of ever deafening partisanship at the national level, it may seem like which party a candidate belongs to is a good yardstick to decide who to vote for. It is not. We must evaluate the candidates individually on who will do the best job for Greenwich. Those that have a resume that we can look to and say “yes” we want this type of leadership in our state and federal government.
As we said in our editorial two weeks ago, how a person campaigns for office says a lot about how they will perform once in office. From our perspective, candidates who have run on their record and the issues have been more successful once in office in helping our community grow and prosper than those who have not.
In that same editorial we called out one candidate – the only one to do so – who sent out a negative campaign mailer, completely misleading and devoid of any factual information. Unfortunately, they have done so again with a second misleading negative mailer. We still believe, perhaps hope is a better word, that our community will not stand for this kind of mudslinging. Come Tuesday we will know for certain how the voters in Greenwich feel about negative campaigning.
Now, let’s talk about the plethora of yard signs. We cannot recall a previous campaign cycle when there have been so many. We champion free speech and do not see anything wrong with political signs, however when there are so many at every intersection, circle, etc. throughout town their effectiveness may begin to work against them. We noticed this week that there are even signs against signs next to each other.
We joked earlier this week that we would not be voting for Candidate A since they only had 17 signs in the Lake Avenue circle and not 18. It is when they are on private property and neighbors can see who supports whom that they actually can sway voters.
After Tuesday, we hope all candidates and political parties will make every effort to take down the political signs as quickly as possible and recycle them. It is discourteous to our community to leave them up or assume the town will take care of them. For all the candidates who wanted us to hear their voice so loudly, after Tuesday we no longer need to hear. Please be respectful and remove your signs.
Tuesday is a big day for all of us. We will decide the direction of our state and our country. But we only get to make that decision if we actually vote. Abraham Lincoln said: “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” It’s a little dark, but it makes a point.
We encourage everyone in our community to vote for the candidates they believe will help our community the most. Polls are open from 6:00am to 8:00pm.
