Here’s Why Many Shun ‘The Race’

Six days from today, many voters will enter the booth, pull the curtain, flip the levers for candidates and that will fulfill part of their civic duty as a citizen. That’s good to do, but it’s only a start. After that, it’s out of voter’s hands, into the realm of hope and glory.
Some wonder why choices are often scant when it comes to elections; sometimes there is no choice whatever, it’s a one-sided slate. Now might be a good time to ask why, not only in Cape May County but the nation. It’s often been asked, almost rhetorically, “Why don’t more good people run for office?”
There are many answers, lack of money being a main deterrent, but that’s why political parties exist, to beat the bushes, and secure funds to run campaigns. Yet campaigns are nothing without decent, viable candidates.
I believe the true reason many viable candidates shun politics altogether is because it can be a really dirty game with no holds barred. It’s rugby in white shirts and ties. It’s a punch to the gut in the dark. Is that who we are, what we expect?
It’s difficult to imagine the depths to which some will stoop for “the good of the party.” That, of course, is nothing new in the history of America. Backrooms exist for one reason only, and that’s to cut deals, make promises, and decide, out of the voters’ eyes, what’s gonna happen.
Scholars of history may regard Watergate as the reason a lot of faith vanished from the nation’s top office, yet closer to home, more recently, a Watergate-like episode took place in Lower Township. It could have been anywhere, but it transpired in our midst.
The situation would be laughable had it not been enlarged out of proportion for purely political reasons. Laughable, because the alleged incident involved a piece of municipal property, valued at under $5, maybe even $3, and it was returned in full view of a surveillance camera’s unforgiving eye.
For those who were gloriously out of the loop, Ward 2 Councilman James Neville, an Independent seeking reelection Nov. 4, while thinking he was doing the right thing, walked into the Lower Township Municipal Utilities Authority lobby and, in the sight of a police officer, and at the urging of several people present, took a poster board with views of an outfall pipe project in his ward to examine further at home. A crime? Hardly, but that’s my opinion.
“Ah, gotcha! And on surveillance tape, no less,” clapped behind-the-scene Republicans, whose party is targeting Neville’s seat. Then, the guy who signed the OPRA request Oct. 3 at 11:42 a.m., dashed off the request for a video copy of the “act” of a councilman doing what most might consider his sworn duty.
In the veritable twinkling of an eye, a video clip of Neville’s “act” was circulated by the Lower Township Republican chairman entitled, “To Catch a Thief.”
If we, in the Fourth Estate, ran such a headline like that over a story before the person was found guilty in a court of law, our feet would literally swing three feet off the ground from a tall oak tree.
Politics must answer to a different set of rules, because otherwise such tripe would never be made public, and no thinking person would believe what they saw. We claim to be a nation governed by the rule of law, yet it seems politics offers license to skirt that system “for the good of the party.”
Never mind the impact an act of spreading accusations has on the person’s family and reputation. Forget the long-term injury to the person, and, for what purpose? Simply to win an election?
We must elevate to a higher plain than that if we ever expect government at any level to truly represent us, we who claim to be a good, moral people who want only the best for the present and future generations.
That, dear reader is one reason why many good, viable potential candidates refuse to enter the fray of the political arena. They have too much class, too much integrity, and that’s a crying shame.
Government ought to be an entity to which young people aspire as something higher and better, something to which they eagerly want to join without fear of their reputations or lives being impacted by lies and innuendoes.
Who would want to be part of an outfit that went around branding the opposition a “thief” before the man was given a chance to defend his good name?
If everyone is “fair game” in politics, that is why wives urge husbands “Don’t do it,” or why husbands tell wives, “I wouldn’t advise you to enter the race.”
When the “fear factor” creeps in, as well it might in such a situation, the opposition has already won. How does any successful repressive government keep its subjects at bay? It rules by fear, fear of imprisonment, injury or death, fear of litigation, fear the family will be harmed irreparably, and fear that one’s business or livelihood will be jolted or ruined.
Was that any different than what took place earlier this month in Lower Township? A court, somewhere outside this vicinage, may consider the case. If and when facts are weighed by an impartial judge, I believe justice will prevail and Neville will be exonerated.
When the gavel falls, and the courtroom empties, let the people ask, “Is this what we expect of our local government and any political party or should we seek something better?”