"I Believe, I Choose, I Choose to Believe" by Nancy Rapier
September, 2008
Let me begin without pretense. This is a statement of my biases. If I did not feel strongly about these points I would not bother writing about them. That being said, I do believe that I arrived at this point through consideration of several perspectives, but primarily I want to know where one would lead me and if I am willing to follow.
I support Barack Obama for President of the United States of America and Joseph Biden as Vice Predsident. I have studied and compared what has come to be called the issues of this campaign from health care, education, and our economy to security, leadership, and character. Where each of these has obvious relevance to me personally as an American and global citizen, I believe that the major differences in the candidates are greatest elsewhere.
Two arenas capture the real differences in the candidates best for me. I ask three questions. First, what do these particular times demand of the leader we choose? Second, how does a candidate define him or herself? Who am I that I will follow the leader I choose?
Simultaneously the easiest and hardest of these questions is the third, but I believe that is where I must look first and hardest. Perhaps at a later date I can address the first two, but for now let me address the third. What do I need from a leader to choose to follow him or her? I want to follow someone who has great intelligence, vision, resolve, and a willingness to stand up for others who are not as strong. I want to follow someone who believes that none of us are so very different that we can’t find a basis for commonality. I want to follow someone who understands what is special about our American spirit, but has no desire to squelch the spirit of others. I want to follow someone who believes the strength of our nation is in its people. I want to follow someone who believes the power that will carry us where we want to go is in the grassroots of this nation. I want to follow someone who is willing to include the unemployed, under educated, and poor in the access to success. I want to follow someone who is intelligent enough to come up with the strategies and tactics to achieve my, our goals, and more importantly who is intelligent enough to abandon failing strategies and tactics. I want to follow someone who is wise enough to know that his or her own intelligence and experience is not enough, who surrounds him or herself with trusted counsel but finally listens to the simplest and meekest among us for the wisdom that can be found there. I want to follow someone who has as much vested in the future as he or she does in the past. Finally I want to follow someone who wants to lead me but not to boss me, to lead me but not to bully me into thinking as he or she does, to lead me but not to command me to leave my own thoughts behind, to lead me and ask “Where do you want to go?”.
I believe John McCain has been a hero. There was a time when he was a maverick. He has a right to allow himself to be so defined. Sarah Palin has allowed herself to be presented and defined as a pit bull in lipstick , as a barracuda. The leader I will be willing to follow does not have to have been a hero or a maverick and must not be a pit bull. The leader I am willing to follow must have been willing to organize at the community level because clearing a path and telling others to catch up when they can isn’t good enough and leaves too many behind and because annihilating those in the way is neither kind nor finally efficient.
Barack Obama and Joseph Biden have asked me where I want our nation to go. They appear to be listening; at this point they are the only candidates who have asked me. I believe that they will notice if and when I would stop following them. Am I naïve enough to think Barack Obama has ever heard of Nancy Rapier, no, but I believe he knows who I am and where I want my leadership to lead.
