88. Some quick thoughts on voting by quotas

Sorry about the lack of posting. It would be nice to say it wasn't for a lack of trying - but it was. Trying to find something of interest everyday or every other day, or as it is becoming my habit, just now and then, is proving difficult, though not overwhelming.

The only thing going on of interest (at least to me) is the governor's race is finally making it to the radar screens of folks other than hacks like me. A friend of mine pointed out to me, in a very light-hearted way, that by supporting John Yarmuth last year and Jonathan Miller this year, I am supporting a person of Jewish heritage for two years in a row. I've not really given that much thought, although I have privately acknoweldged to myself that in this support two years in a row, such thoughts are only numerations - lists of who I am for and not for - and not some sort of quota system. I've never voted for or against someone based on their religious practices (or lack thereof), nor do I ever plan to make that part of my decision. The only quota system I have used in personal voting was that of age - and maybe good looks.

In a race where I had no clear choice - or where I didn't really care, as a rule, I've opted for the youngest candidate, especially one that might be younger than me. For many years, that had never posed a problem as few candidates were ever younger than me. As age, but not yet maturity, has set in, my choices are more abundant. One of the reasons in the back of my mind for leaning toward Barack Obama for president - other than he is a well qualified man, is also that he is younger than me by 10 months or so. I'm both looking forward to and regretting the casting of a ballot for a presidential candidate younger than me. Looking forward because in all of history, there has always been a next generation upon whom the hopes for all future successes rest. Regretfully as it is a sign that the time is fast arriving not only to be supportive of these younger candidates, but that they will in fact be winning and governing and I will be moving on to the status of actually being older.

One of the first speeches I learned, mostly at the insistence of my grandmother, was John Kennedy's Inaugural Address, given just four months after my birth. Like me and Obama, when my grandmother (who was not Catholic and didn't really like Catholics) supported Kennedy, one of the reasons she told me was that he was the first person she could vote for president who was younger than her and she felt it was important to put the country in younger hands. Like me and Obama, Kennedy was 10 months younger than she. She was 44 and he 43 at the time of his election; I am 46, Obama will be 46 in August. Keep in mind, the outgoing president, General Eisenhower (as he was called by the generation immerdiately following World War Two), was (at that time) the oldest man ever to serve in the office. Kennedy, of course, was the youngest ever elected (although not the youngest to ever serve; that would be Theodore Roosevelt).

Many people remember, some not all that successfully, the quote from his inaugural, "[A]sk not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." There are a few other very good lines in that speech, but they have been glossed over in favor of this one above. The very next lines following the above quote was, "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." It is far more encompassing for the world as a whole and to me a greater line. But one which has always stuck in my head was very early in the speech when the president said, "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans . . . . "

It always seemed to me to be a slap in the face of not only President Eisenhower, but also many older Americans. I've always felt there was probably a better way to have expressed the same sentiment, but I've never figured out what it was. As I am more and more voting for younger and younger candidates, I am in a way passing that torch along, but am also acknowleding that the torch must indeed be passed.