Local races count, too

For the past couple of months in lectures, professors have been slyly dropping hints about their views on the presidential candidates and the electoral process. Students have taped anything politically eye-catching enough to the walls and windows of their dorm rooms. As soon as the seeds of a contentious debate spring out from the mouths of one of the presidential candidates, hordes of bodies cluster around the colorful moving screens at Frist.

None of this pushed me into the realm of higher political thought, though. An absentee ballot was already making its way towards my Princeton mailbox. I'd already watched enough television to label Kerry as a flip-flopper and Bush as inarticulate. I had completed, minimally, the duties of my citizenship.

But then the sudden splurge of mail changed all of that. Usually, my mailbox is as bare and empty as a dormitory room after students move out for the summer. The other day, however, when I shoved the golden key into the lock and jerked it into a turn, a pile of mail sat in the cramped metal box, waiting for me.

At first, I thought I had unknowingly broken into someone else's mailbox. I've never been popular enough to receive massive quantities of letters. Then I realized all the postcards and letters must have been for my roommate. The only mail I usually receive is an occasional postcard from my sister and pamphlets from the Dean of College. But this time the colorful mound of mail was all for me.

As I excitedly flipped through the stack of papers all personally addressed to me, I saw to my consternation that I knew none of the people who had so kindly sent me mail. Bob Spada? Kristin W. Sweeney? Sally Conway Kilbane? Ed Herman? Who were these people?

After tearing open the letters and reading the postcards, I realized that those people were my state senators, juvenile court judges, representatives and Congressmen, or at least trying to be. They hadn't sent me mail out of kindness, but more out of desperation for my vote.

I shamefacedly realized that I had come nowhere close to fulfilling my duties as a voting citizen. I had been following the presidential election by reading different newspapers and watching clips on television. But I wasn't even aware of the existence of numerous other lesser-known candidates on their own personal campaign trails.

Many of these smaller politicians relied on local ties to fish for votes. For instance, Kilbane connects with her state's voters saying she attended St. Joseph Academy, a local Catholic school, and currently resides in the beautiful suburb of Rocky River. She also "continues to support changes in education funding to increase the state's share," a rather vague and open-ended appeal to human beings in general.

Others, like President Bush, play on the emotions of voters with larger national issues. Herman claims to be a better candidate for Congress than Dennis Kucinich because he "fought in the War on Terror in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001," and "Knows our enemies and what it will take to keep America safe." Unfortunately, I am still confused by how he "knows our enemies," but he never elucidated his statements in his personal letter to me or on his personal www.EdHer-manForCongress.com website.

These local politicians' strategies pale in comparison to the well-funded and well-researched tactics of the presidential candidates, but their methods actually are no different. They all hope to emotionally connect with voters and eloquently argue only about issues relevant to voters. The issues local politicians attack are lower scale but are just as important as the ones the future president must tackle with.

Despite their near anonymity and more modest campaign tactics, local candidates deserve the chance to be heard and understood. If apathy is not an excuse to not vote in the presidential election Nov. 2, then neither is it an excuse to not vote in your state's senatorial, congressional or judicial election on that same day as well. To make an informed decision, it takes time to read about and follow the policies and voting patterns of these candidates. But learning about your local and state politicians is just as necessary as finding about the policies of your presidential candidate. Many of these politicians may never attain blockbuster status, but the actions they take and don't take affect your community at home, and reflect the views of your state on a national level.

This Nov. 2, vote for more than just a president. Vote for your government. Anna Huang is a sophomore from West Lake, Ohio. She can be reached at ajh@princeton.edu.