Joe Biden’s Inclusive Tent

I got my interest in politics from my late father. He canvassed our Davenport neighborhood for John F. Kennedy. Kennedy lost Iowa yet won the general election.

My first campaign was for Lyndon Johnson when I was 12. I delivered newspapers after school and one Saturday after paying my bill at the newspaper office I volunteered for the Democrats stuffing envelopes. They gave me a campaign button for my time. When Johnson won in the historic landslide I figured Democrats would win every future election like that.

I’m no longer 12.

In 2020 I’m voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominees for president and vice president. Prominent national Republicans announced they are planning to vote for Biden-Harris too. I have little idea who will win the election in Iowa or nationwide. To an extent what matters more than the Nov. 3 vote is what we as a nation will do about it.

Presently people can’t agree what our most pressing problems are. If we can’t agree on that, we will never solve any of them. Some days it seems difficult to have a reasonable discussion about things that matter in this country. Nevertheless, we must persist.

If people were more like we are in the Solon area we’d have a better chance at solving problems. I look back on my time on the Solon Senior Advocates board and believe we got good things done. It didn’t have a thing to do with our politics. As a society we need more of that.

I hope readers will vote on or before Nov. 3. Biden is building an inclusive tent where all are welcome. I invite you to join us. We are stronger together as a society when we participate in our democracy, regardless of for whom we vote.

~ Published in the Sept. 3, 2020 edition of the Solon Economist.