My first election season as an editor-in-chief is over – finally.
I’ve worked Election Night before, but as the hired gun. Calling the shots last week was both exciting and exhausting, and I didn’t stump for a single vote.
All the races on the ballot were decided by about 25 percent of you, decisions that will affect all Osceola County residents’ everyday life. It came out to just over 40 percent of the “eligible” voters – last Tuesday.
It sounds worse than it seems, when you realize a third of the county is not registered to vote, but most of those are children. So, while you’d hope more people would participate in the process, it was encouraging.
But, while votes and tallies may have been encouraging, the process of getting to Tuesday night often was not – it was often full-on discouraging.
Campaign ads used to be confined to our TV sets, newspapers and landline phones. They’ve made their way to our cell phones, often rely on nothing but buzz words.
“That candidate wants to send everyone to Hell! (Referenced by an excerpt when they walked into a room, noted it was cold, and asked someone to turn up the heat.) But our candidate, they’ll solve crime, poverty, hunger and remove burden from your life, all while lowering taxes!”
Those claims were made without answering one question: “How?” And, while the ads support one candidate, when you (pause the screen and) read the tiny print: “The <name of> party encourages you to vote for …” a series of three or four names.
Political perseverance. I mostly saw it in state-level races – and there was plenty of it around here. All in the name of winning a power struggle.
But we can’t mention the struggle without a moment on the Osceola School Board district 4 race between two well-intentioned local educators that got out of hand thanks to political action committees. Those groups spent thousands of dollars directing relentless vicious attacks against each other.
I spoke to both candidates, Heather Kahoun and Will Fonseca, about this in the final weeks of the campaign. They both said that negative campaigning was all done beyond their local efforts, to talk about issues that would be important to students, parents and teachers.
And when our newspaper and its logo was dragged into the middle of it, supporters on both sides challenged motives of any decision, or defense of a decision, we made.
Then it got personal. Through social media, people claimed I personally supported one candidate, and went farther to talk about my political beliefs. And a supporter of one of the School Board candidates went so far as to send me direct messages questioning my DNA and asking if my “children are proud of my work.”
For those who criticize, let me be clear: the Osceola News-Gazette works hard to present all sides of issues and does not endorse candidates. We strive to be fair, factual, impartial and this community’s leading, trusted news source.
We report, then trust our audience to make its own informed choices. At the same time, we will hold true to our political and journalistic priorities.
I live, and vote, in Orange County. On my ballot’s eight partisan elections, I chose four Republicans, three Democrats and a Libertarian. I’m the kind of voter major parties would just assume stay home, because they don’t know what to expect from me. My allegiance is to people and not the parties they align with for personal political relevance.
I know politics can get dirty, especially of late when people see how polarized we are by division on a national scale, and feel the need to bring that to the local level. But I didn’t expect how personal some people would get in choosing their election sides.
Years ago – more than 10, maybe 20 – the popular notion in this country regarding speech and values was, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.”
Today, that’s been replaced by, “Say what I think, or keep your mouth shut.”
But my hope remains —future elections will be about the qualifications of candidates, their mission to make things better for our community, and how they’ll accomplish it.
Our democracy depends on it.
