Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Primary Problem - 3.4.11

The presidential election is still more than a year and a half away, but once again, politicians are already talking about changing the date of the state’s primary election. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has some thoughts.

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If you haven’t been traumatized enough by this seemingly endless winter and the governor’s budget proposals, I’ve got something that may really give you nightmares.

It’s presidential election time again. Now, you may be saying wait a minute. Wasn’t the last congressional election only four months ago? Well, yes. But the presidential election is next year, and the candidates are already out campaigning, though none of them are calling it that. I am aware that people who don’t know each other yet will meet, fall in love, and have babies before we finally get around to voting a year from November.

But presidents have a far longer gestation period. And one sure sign that the election season is on is that the leaders of our two great political parties are once again attempting to screw up the Michigan primary. They’ve gotten pretty good at this, and last time, the Democrats managed to make themselves the laughingstock of the nation, by holding a primary that was both ruled illegal and invalid and which did not have a guy named Barack Obama on the ballot.

Early indications are that they’ve learned nothing from their mistakes. Here’s the problem. For many years, the election calendar has worked like this. Iowa goes first, with a set of caucuses which pick that state’s delegates in January. Then, New Hampshire follows with the nation’s first primary election.

Then a couple other small states follow in February, and after that, the other states can do whatever they want. This is a good system, because it allows candidates without much money to be seen and tested in small states where you don’t need millions.

Iowa and New Hampshire are also now swing states that switch sides frequently in November. But Michigan party leaders are jealous. They want to go first. Last time they broke party rules and held a January primary which was a farce.

Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary, as local leaders wanted and expected him to. They wanted to give the home boy a boost. But his candidacy was dead in two months, and Michigan was once again irrelevant. Worse than, in that the party penalized the state by taking away half its delegates, though they gave them back at the last minute. The Democrats were even worse. Jennifer Granholm and Mark Brewer figured Hillary Clinton was the certain nomination winner, and wanted to curry favor with her.

All the other major candidates kept their names off the ballot, however, and the party refused to seat any of Michigan’s delegates, till the very last minute when it didn’t matter.

Next year, the odds are that President Obama won’t be challenged for renomination, but there will be a big GOP field.

The party would be well advised to keep a cool head and stay within the rules. Later primaries have been decisive. Michigan’s primary in May, 1976 helped save that year’s nomination for Gerald Ford. Four years later, George Bush’s victory in a May Michigan primary was instrumental in gaining him the vice-presidential nomination. So going later isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Legally, we are supposed to hold next year’s primary on Feb. 28, which is still plenty early. Let’s do something amazingly wise for once, and leave it there.

Essay: John Dingell, Running Again - 1.21.11

John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House in history, announced yesterday that he would run for another term next year. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry reflects on that.

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He was a young man when he first came to Congress, tall, gangly, and with questionable taste in haircuts and ties.

Owlish old Sam Rayburn swore him in on a chill December day, saying something, no doubt, about his father, who had held the seat before him, and who had died just months before.

That was more than fifty-five years ago. General Motors, the world’s richest corporation was putting ever bigger tail fins on their cars, and consumers were just starting to wonder if they’d ever be able to afford one of those sensational new color TVs.

That was the world when John Dingell Jr. arrived in Washington at the end of 1955, the country‘s newest and youngest congressman. He was twenty-nine then. This summer he will be eighty-five. Everybody else who was in Congress when he arrived is gone. Most are dead.

When he arrived, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin were years away from being born. He’s stayed in the House longer than anyone in history. Two men have stayed in Congress longer, when you combine time in both chambers. John Dingell will pass one of them soon. But to beat the other, West Virginia’s Robert Byrd, Dingell has get reelected one more time, next year.

This week, the man they used to call the truck announced that he intended to try to do just that. He’s running again.

That didn’t especially surprise me, although the timing did at first. The next election is not till November 2012. Big John has had knee problems, heart problems, and a hip replacement.

Shouldn’t he wait? Then I remembered: This is a redistricting year. Michigan is going to lose a seat in Congress, and someone’s district is going to disappear. Dingell is telling the legislature not to make it his. Oh, the boundaries will change, but he wants a district he can run in, and win. It won’t be called the fifteenth district anymore. Michigan is only going to have fourteen. It may have more Republicans in it. And he’s likely to have a race on his hands.

Last year, a cardiologist named Rob Steele gave Dingell the first real general election challenge he’s ever had. Steele even led on election night, till Dearborn and Ann Arbor checked in and wiped the challenger out. But Dingell had a scare.

Or I should say, his friends did. Nothing seems to scare, or stop, Big John. They took his committee chairmanship away two years ago, and his party is back in the minority.

But he’s keeping on. Next year’s election will come exactly eighty years after Michigan first sent a John Dingell to Congress, to fill what was then the brand new fifteenth district.

That was his daddy. Last year John Dingell, who first stepped onto the floor of Congress at age six, saw his father’s dream of national health care finally fulfilled.

Next year, he’s hoping the voters give him one last hurrah. You can say he should retire. Dingell thinks otherwise. He thinks he‘s still the best man for the job, and intends to leave it up to the voters to decide. And even his Tea Party critics have to admit this much; It is his perfect constitutional right to do so.

Essay: The Statesman and the State - 1.20.11

The governors’ annual State of the State speeches, are often forgotten soon after they are delivered. But Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks the one last night may be a little different.

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When it comes to speeches, Rick Snyder cannot begin to touch Jennifer Granholm in terms of style.

At no time during his State of the State speech last night did he come close to matching her perfectly modulated tones. He’s getting better, but the governor still sounds much of the time like a college student making a speech in a class he’s required to take.

But when it comes to substance and leadership, he blew her out of the park. He took one of the most divisive issues in the state, made it his own, worked out an astonishing deal with the federal government, and happily co-opted both his friends and enemies.

Nobody had a clue before last night what the new governor would do about the proposed new bridge over the Detroit River.

For years, Matty Moroun, the billionaire trucking magnate who owns the Ambassador Bridge, has managed to block construction of a new internationally owned bridge.

Last December, Moroun’s allies in the state senate blocked a vote on the bridge, which virtually every other interest group in the state has wanted for years.

During last year’s election cycle the Ambassador Bridge’s owner donated more than half a million dollars to candidates and their committees, with the clear expectation they‘d continue to protect his interests. Nobody knew how Snyder stood on the issue, but supporters of the new bridge had little reason to be optimistic.

But then Snyder stunned the state.

“It’s time to build the new Detroit River International Crossing Bridge,” he said flatly. And then he added a bigger surprise. He’d gone to Washington and negotiated a deal.

The federal government would allow the $550 million dollar loan Canada had offered Michigan to get the bridge deal done to count as matching funds for federal highway dollars.

That’s not only a good deal for Michigan, it offers Republicans who had opposed the bridge a face-saving way to change their minds.

“Forget everything you heard in last year’s debate,” the new governor told them. After all, this wasn’t the bill they rejected last year, but a new and better deal for Michigan.

There are some who are saying the new governor was backing the bridge to please the Democrats, to win bipartisan support. Well, it may have that effect, but some of the strongest backers of the DRIC bridge have been Republicans outside the legislature, like former Governor John Engler and Oakland County’s Brooks Patterson.

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce wants the bridge, as do all the auto companies. Snyder decided to try to end the logjam saying he was tired of “rhetoric and paralysis. It’s time to solve problems.” Now, the bridge isn’t a done deal yet.

Nor did the governor explain how he proposes to close the massive budget deficit. That’ll come with his budget, next month.

But everything he said indicated he is a man of rational, commonsense solutions. He wants full funding of the successful Pure Michigan ad campaign. Most of all, he wants anything and everything that will create jobs. Ironically, by the end of the night, his somewhat wooden delivery had accomplished something his predecessor never did. He really did blow people away.

And I have a sneaking suspicion we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Essay: Build the Bridge - 12.15.10

An early winter storm has closed Port Huron’s Blue Water Bridge and caused miles-long backups at the Ambassador Bridge. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks its clear that we need another kind of backup.

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As I write this, the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron and Sarnia remains closed to commercial truck traffic because of weather conditions. This has already had an effect on the economy.

General Motors has had to temporarily close its Flint Truck Assembly plant because of a lack of parts. Trucks are being diverted to Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge, but that’s snarling up the highways.

Yesterday afternoon, there were reports that trucks waiting to use the Ambassador Bridge were backed up for miles on I-75, stacked up on the overpass over the smoky and smelly Rouge.

This couldn’t be helped. The eighty-year-old, privately owned Ambassador was the only alternative. Technically, that bridge is not supposed to allow trucks carrying hazardous materials to cross.

But Ambassador Bridge management said they were waving that rule for the duration of the emergency. Given the situation, it is hard to to see what else they could do. For there simply is no backup.

After this, it ought to be very clear that we need another bridge, right now. The bad weather that closed the Blue Water Bridge wasn’t a one-time anomaly. This is what happens in winter in Canada, a lot.

Truck traffic is going to steadily get heavier and heavier, too. According to the Journal of Commerce Online, truck traffic over the Ambassador Bridge is up 18 percent this year. Traffic over the Blue Water Bridge is up 9 percent. It’s up more than ten percent in Buffalo.

Everyone knows we need a new bridge, and right now, there’s a shovel-ready project ready to go: The Detroit International River Crossing bridge, which would be built about two miles south of the Ambassador Bridge. As I’ve noted many times before, virtually everyone wants this backup span except two groups of people.

The Moroun family, who own the Ambassador Bridge, and don’t want anyone infringing on their monopoly, and the leadership of the Michigan state senate, many of whose members have taken Moroun money in the form of campaign or other contributions.

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop once again refused to allow a vote on a new bridge.

Some members questioned whether a new bridge is really necessary. Others said if a new bridge is to be built, let Moroun build another private one with his money, as he has indicated he wants to do.

But Canada has flatly said that’s something it will not allow, because of reasons involving highway congestion and environmental factors. Already, people on both sides of the border, including State Representative Rashida Tlaib, have complained about truck exhaust.

Canada wants the DRIC bridge, and that nation’s transportation minister went to Lansing this week to again reaffirm that Canada will cover Michigan’s costs of building the bridge.

Michigan‘s Legislature is back in session today to clean up a bunch of mainly procedural issues. Many of the lawmakers resent being there, and want to start their holiday.

Yet as futile as what I am about to say may be, this would be a golden opportunity to hear the wakeup call this storm has sent, and authorize moving forward on a new bridge.

Otherwise, eventually, our economy is going to suffer. And Michigan’s had enough of that in the last ten years to last a lifetime.

Essay: When the Law is an Ass - 12.8.10

A Wayne County circuit judge this week ruled that the Detroit Schools’ Emergency Financial Manager had no authority to set academic standards. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about that decision.

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This is the season when Charles Dickens is again in style, or at least his Christmas Carol. We’ve all been grappling with our own versions of Mr. Scrooge all year, and we all need a happy ending.

But I’ve been thinking of a different Dickens character this week: Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist, who said in response to some idiotic legal ruling: “If the law supposes that, then the law is an ass.”

What made me think of that was the Wayne County Circuit Court ruling Monday. Judge Wendy Baxter ruled that Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager of the Detroit Schools, had no right or power to make academic decisions.

She ruled that those decisions can only be made by the elected school board, and that Bobb had no business creating an academic plan and putting it into place. Legally, there may be a basis for her decision, but she also seemed to personally attack Bobb. She virtually sneered that his vision comes “from a person chosen solely based on his finance credentials and who has no … education or counseling background,” except from “unvetted sources.”

That seems to ignore the fact that Bobb was the elected president of the board of education in Washington, D.C schools, and that many of the Detroit school board members aren’t former teachers either, including current board president Anthony Adams.

More importantly, under them, the district compiled a stunning record of both financial mismanagement and academic failure. Students were fleeing in droves, test scores and graduation rates were abysmal, and the system was running huge deficits.

Robert Bobb, a nationally respected turnaround expert, was then brought in by the governor as the schools’ emergency financial manager. He maintains that you can’t separate financial from academic decisions in a context like Detroit’s, and he’s clearly right.

More than ten years ago, Detroit’s schools were in a similar state and former Wayne State University President David Adamany was put in charge of them, in a similar role to that Bobb has today.

What had happened then, Adamany told me, was that the schools had been largely ruined by an elected board which picked superintendents for political reasons and demanded that the schools appoint cronies to jobs for which many were unqualified.

Much the same thing happened under the current board.

Robert Bobb, whose term expires this year, has stabilized the schools’ finances, won approval of a half-billion dollar bond issue, and has put some sound academic reforms in place.

Democracy is a wonderful thing. But we the people don’t attempt to elect the board that certifies brain surgeons.

Making sure children get the education they so desperately need is as important as brain surgery. Detroit Public School kids have been the victim of political football for far too long. This decision should be speedily reversed, and Bobb’s academic reforms need to be given a chance to work. For if we don’t restore public schools that parents can have confidence in, Detroit hasn’t got a chance.

Essay: Buying Congress - 12.6.10

The campaigns are now over, and official reports indicate that our races for Congress were the most expensive in state history. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about this.

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Tim Walberg, who lost his seat in Congress two years ago, is going back to Washington next month. Once he gets there, he will be paid an annual salary of $174,000 dollars a year.

That sounds pretty good, though it is a little less sweet once you realize that he has to live in two places, including one of the highest-priced real estate markets in the country.

That’s probably not a big problem for some of his fellow congressmen like Dave Camp of Midland, a multi-millionaire.

But it hasn’t been easy for some others. Bart Stupak, who is voluntarily retiring from Congress, lived for awhile in a boarding house. A few members have tried living in their congressional offices, but that hasn’t usually worked out very well.

What will boggle your mind, however, is how much it costs these days to actually win a seat in Congress. The official numbers are now in, and it cost six point three million dollars to put Walberg back in Congress. Six point three million.

Now he didn’t spend that out of his own pocket. That would be illegal even if he had the dough. His campaign apparatus raised and spent a lot of it. But outside special interests spent even more.

The Walberg campaign raised and spent one point six million. But groups from outside the district, like the Manhattan-based Club for Growth, spent four point seven million dollars.

By the way, don’t think I am implying that the incumbent who lost was overwhelmed by a GOP spending blitz. In fact, the loser in this case, a liberal Democrat, spent more than the Republican.

Eight point eight million dollars were spent in a futile effort to return Mark Schauer to office. That would be enough to pay his congressional salary for fifty years. There was one difference: Far more of Schauer’s money was actually raised by his campaign. Far less came from outside groups.

But it is very clear that campaign spending has gotten to out-of-control levels. This is a fairly recent development.

David Bonior told me he was embarrassed by how much his campaign spent when he first won a hotly contested Michigan congressional seat in 1976. It was a lot more than he planned on spending -- thirty-six thousand dollars.

Today, congressmen have to spend vast amounts of time begging people for money. Usually, they want something for it, which is an open invitation to corruption.

Something needs to be done. Most people think that’s impossible, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in January that corporations can spend as much as they want on campaigns. But there is a way, other than a constitutional amendment.

The vast majority of all this spending is for broadcast commercials. Congress, or even, the Federal Communications Commission, could require stations to supply all candidates with the same amount of time, as a public service.

Even before that, Michigan could require campaigns to provide full disclosure about who is giving what to whom, something the Supreme Court says is fully legal, but our state doesn’t require.

There may be other solutions, but we need to find one. The only alternative is to be content forever with the most expensive Congress that special interest money can buy.

Essay: Life of the Party - 11.15.2010

Former Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party Saul Anuzis announced he now wants to be the next Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry talks a look at what that would mean…

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Saul Anuzis grew up in a blue-collar home in Detroit, the son of Lithuanian immigrants who could barely speak English. Though he makes a comfortable living now, he‘s not exactly a country club type.

He loves riding his big Harley motorcycle and dropped out of the U of M Dearborn just short of a degree. His wife, Lina is also Lithuanian, and the parents gave their four sons Lithuanian names - Tadas, Vytis, Matas and Marius, and encourage them to speak the language whenever they are all in their Lansing-area home.

But what makes Anuzis especially remarkable is that the fundamental commitment in his life is to the Republican Party, after his family and the Roman Catholic Church. For four years, in fact, Anuzis was Michigan’s Mr. Republican, state party chair.

And now, he’s making a major effort to get the top job in Washington. Last week, he announced he was running for Republican National Chairman, a post now held by the controversial Michael Steele, a man best known for tripping over his tongue.

Anuzis, who makes his living from his telecommunications business, Coast to Coast Strategies, was a candidate for the top GOP job two years ago, but narrowly lost out to Steele.

And ever since, it has often seemed that the only question was whether Steele would even be allowed to serve out his term.

He began his tenure by fighting with Rush Limbaugh, appeared to take a pro-choice stand he had to retract, and then went on to say that Afghanistan was a “war of Obama’s choosing,” when it was really begun by President George W. Bush.

There was even a scandal when the Republican National Committee paid for some people to spend an evening at a “bondage-themed” topless nightclub. But while Steele hasn’t yet said whether he is a candidate for re-election this January, something may have given him a new lease on life: this month’s midterm elections.

Republicans won a tremendous landslide, and did it on his watch. Saul Anuzis, on the other hand, presided over four of the worst years in modern history for the Michigan GOP.

Yet there is reason to think that Anuzis might be just what his party needs, if it is going to take back the Senate and White House next year. Anuzis is far better at cultivating the media than Steele.

But Saul is not really interested in being the story himself. He is a tremendously tech-savvy guy who is also superb at crafting campaign strategies and raising money. “The chairman‘s job is to get our candidates to the ten-yard-line so they can score,” he said.

Running for office doesn’t appeal to him. Coaching, however, does. Though his Republicans did abysmally in Michigan during his time in office, they did poorly just about everywhere then. In fact, the case can be made that Anuzis’s adroit maneuvering was what allowed the GOP to keep narrow control of the Michigan Senate four years ago.

I have no idea whether Anuzis will win the top spot when the Republican National Committee convenes January 12. There may be a flock of other candidates by then. But I do know this.

If he does win, it’s unlikely to be good news for the Democrats.

ESSAY: Divided We Stand - 11.04.10

By now everybody knows that Rick Snyder won a landslide victory on Tuesday. But Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says the shape of the vote is a little different than you might have expected.

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As everyone knows, Rick Snyder won a tremendous victory this week over Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. But late yesterday I started looking at the numbers, and I noticed something interesting. The Snyder landslide was a little different than you might have been led to believe. Okay, go ahead and make fun of me. After all, what kind of guy analyzes election returns on a Wednesday night? Tell you what: Just think of me for now as one not-so-tough, and, unfortunately, not-so-rich nerd, and we’ll do fine. But, bear with me a moment. Here’s what really happened in the election. White independent voters, most of them middle-class or better, switched to Snyder. Republicans were also enthusiastic about his candidacy. Though some may have wished he were a little more conservative, virtually none preferred Bernero. And Republicans were enthusiastic, either because they wanted to send a message to Washington, or because they felt they were going to win. So they showed up and voted for Snyder. Those white independent voters did too. Most of them voted for Democrat Jocelyn Benson for secretary of state, and many of them voted for her fellow Democrat, David Leyton, for attorney general. However, there weren‘t nearly enough of these independents to elect either of those candidates. And that’s because Democrats stayed home. This became clear on election night. Terri Lynn Land, Michigan’s soon-to-be former secretary of state, has usually been right on the money with her predictions of voter turnout. This time, she estimated there would be 3.8 million voters statewide, about the same as four years ago. But half a million fewer turned out. Looking at the county-by-county vote, it was clear that some Dems sat out this election. And something else was starkly clear as well. Rick Snyder attempted to reach out to black voters. In recent years, some Republican candidates have virtually ignored the city. Snyder opened a headquarters in Detroit. He campaigned there. He sought the support or at least the understanding of influential black clergy. He had his election night party, not in Ann Arbor where he lives, but in a downtown Detroit hotel. Yet in return, he received almost no black votes. Some of his strategists thought they might get as much as a fifth of Detroit’s vote. He modeled his campaign after that of former Republican Gov. William Milliken, who was popular in the city. But it didn’t work at all. Four years ago, when he lost by a landslide, Dick DeVos got four percent of Detroit’s vote. Rick Snyder got five percent. In Highland Park, which has essentially no white voters at all, Snyder got four percent. The people who switched were white independents. DeVos got only 24 percent in the affluent liberal community of Huntington Woods. Snyder almost doubled that, to forty-six percent. Statewide, Rick Snyder got almost three hundred thousand more votes than DeVos had. But the real difference was that Virg Bernero got nearly a million fewer than Jennifer Granholm. What’s all this mean? Michigan voters have clearly lost confidence in the Democrats. But many are still reserving judgment on Snyder. And as far as African-Americans are concerned, he hasn’t even begun to make the sale.

Essay: Aftermath - 11.3.10

The election’s over, and Republicans are triumphant at all levels across our state. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says it is time to wish them good luck, and success.

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What happened yesterday was the largest midterm political earthquake in this state and nation since 1946. Republicans made massive gains almost everywhere, especially perhaps in the Midwest. In Michigan, voters decisively indicated they’ve had enough and wanted something new. Now, they are going to get it. Republicans easily won every statewide race on the ballot. They have a solid majority in the Michigan House and a super-majority in the state senate. Most people thought this would be a big victory for Rick Snyder, and that some Republicans might be swept in on his coattails. In fact, while Snyder led the ticket, it was a top-to-bottom GOP triumph, or at least a vote against the Democrats. Turnout was somewhat lower than expected, though it is too early to say who the no-shows were. And Snyder in fact did slightly less well than John Engler did in his last two landslide elections. But his party performed better at every level than it had when former Governor Engler was running. Consequently, Republicans will have more of a free hand in running Michigan government than at any time since the Great Depression. That is, if they stay united. Thanks to the GOP’s new super-majority in the state senate, Democrats won’t even be able to prevent any bill from taking immediate effect. Republicans have complete power in Lansing. But with that power comes responsibility. Rick Snyder and the new legislature are going to face huge problems when they take office in January. They are looking at an enormous budget deficit for next year, with absolutely no chance of any more stimulus money to fill the gap. Hard choices are coming. Either the state has to raise new revenue or make what amounts to unimaginable cuts to education, services of all kinds, and the prison system. This time, on the state level at any rate, Republicans will be unable to blame Democrats if they make a mess of things or have difficulty balancing the budget or satisfying the voters. Yet the voters also indicated that this is also not the time for any more partisan finger-pointing games. Last night, former Gov. Jim Blanchard told me that as a practical matter, regardless of the size of his majority, Governor-elect Snyder will need help from some moderate Democrats. Joe Schwarz, a former GOP congressman and state senator told me the same thing earlier in the day. And in fact, every resident of Michigan should wish Rick Snyder all the success in the world. Our state is in poor shape. Unemployment is thirteen percent. We’ve lost nearly a million jobs over the last decade. Even if all the domestic auto companies survive long-term, they never again will provide high-paying jobs for hundreds of thousands of unskilled and uneducated workers. The state needs a new economic model. State government has been at least as dysfunctional, with a flawed budget process that is guaranteed to throw up a sizable deficit, every year. Those are things that our newly elected leaders need to address almost immediately. We just had an election, after years in which Michigan has been sailing through a terrible storm. We all need to hope that the crew we just elected can get us to calmer and happier seas.

ESSAY: Voting Day - 10.02.2010

Today is Election Day. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about what it means to cast a vote.

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They’re voting now, in schools and churches and fire stations, all across Michigan. Standing in line, trying to stay warm, studying sample ballots or lists they’ve brought with them.

Perhaps three million Michiganders will vote today. Hundreds of thousands more have already voted, sending in or dropping off absentee ballots. A few voted from the front lines in Afghanistan or the deserts of Iraq, and sent their ballots through the mail.

The secretary of state estimates that a little more than half the state’s registered voters will vote today, which means almost half won’t, on top of the many who never bothered to register.

I always vote myself, even when I am not especially excited by any of the candidates. I vote because I’ve been to too many countries where people got killed for trying to cast a vote.

I vote because when I was twelve, three college kids not much older than me were tortured and murdered for trying to get frightened Americans to register to vote, in the state of Mississippi.

When they died there was a three-year-old little boy elsewhere in this country whose parents’ lives would have been in danger had they been living in Mississippi when he was born.

They might have been murdered because his daddy was black and his momma was white. Today, that little boy is the President of the United States. The people who look like him finally got the right to vote partly because a white lady from Detroit went to Alabama to help them, and was brutally murdered by the Ku Klux Klan.

So I vote. I think if you haven’t voted yet today, you owe it to yourself and your nation to do so. Maybe not for every office. But you surely know something about the candidates for governor, or have an idea whether we should have a constitutional convention.

You ought to have some opinion about your representative in Congress. I know that if you’ve been listening to the smug commentators on television, you’ve heard that most of these elections are no longer in doubt. Well, guess what.

They are in doubt, till we’ve all voted. Ask Jim Blanchard, who the same talking heads said was certain to win twenty years ago.

There wasn’t a doubt in the world about his re-election, till the votes were counted. Sometimes, it is important and honorable to vote for the loser. I remember coming out of a voting booth once, voting against a candidate whom I knew would win, but whom I couldn’t stand. “Well, that’s one he didn’t get,” I thought.

And I liked that feeling.

But as much as I enjoy the tradition of standing in line, there’s a problem nowadays. The ballot is too complex. There are too many candidates and proposals. Sample ballots are available on the internet, but I think we should all automatically be sent one in the mail, so we can study it, mark it up and take it with us to the polls.

But for now, do the best you can, and if you haven’t done so yet, go cast your vote.

People died to get you the right to do that. I think we owe it to ourselves to pay them back.