Get Out the Vote

We’re sure standing on the National Mall in Washington D.C. on Oct. 30, listening to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” would be an exhilarating experience. In fact, it might be a story we’d tell our grandchildren.

But if we were to wake up on Nov. 3 to a Congress led by the Republican Party as it currently exists, we don’t know if we could look our grandchildren in the face and be proud of our decision to attend the rally. As entertaining and memorable as standing and listening to Jon Stewart would be, we will be walking and calling and fighting for candidates who will bring some semblance of sanity back to congress.  Instead of standing in the backyard of the Capitol building, we’ll be knocking on the front doors of voters in New Hampshire.  We’ll be doing this because the midterm elections are far too important to be standing idly by, no matter how entertaining the speaker is.

The impetus for this rally is absolutely right.  Our current political climate—from Tea Party candidates who still insist that President Obama is a foreign national to the millions of dollars pouring into campaigns from advertising firms and anonymous special interests—is completely out of control.  We have gone from a system marked by enlightened discourse between relatively moderate candidates and political factions that have true, substantive ideological differences to a nationalized shouting match advocating ad hominem attacks and unrealistic policies. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert clearly understand this and want to provide like-minded individuals the opportunity to express their frustration. But merely venting frustration and laughing at the system implies that there is nothing to be done—it implies that all we can do is sit on our hands and hope that people will come to their senses.

The problem is, on this particular weekend—Get Out The Vote weekend, in which campaigns are truly decided—it is far too late for just talk. While Jon Stewart’s humor was a balm to the frustrated citizenry during the Bush administration, when there seemed to be little recourse for those who felt we had strayed from the right path, we are far from helpless at this moment.  These elections will determine whether calmer heads will prevail, or whether we will cede territory to the melodramatic ideologues who would have you believe that the legislative accomplishments of the past two years spell Armageddon. With a third of the electorate still undecided, this weekend marks a tipping point.  It is at this crucial moment that we knock on the final doors and call every last voter, driving them out to the polls to decide whether they will vote for those candidates who have remained above the fray.

For a Harvard student who is willing to sit on a bus for 10 hours each way to and from D.C., to stand in the cold on the National Mall, to watch a speck on the horizon make jokes about the insanity that has become our political process, we offer an opportunity for active, rather than passive, expression.  Board a bus with us going in the opposite direction and drive an hour to Manchester, New Hampshire. Instead of standing in the cold on the Mall, walk through a brisk fall day to canvass voters across the city.  Instead of watching a figure in the distance, talk to a real voter and join us in the warm campaign office for the break to watch the rally on television—you might actually be able to see Stewart’s and Colbert’s facial expressions!

The best way to restore sanity is not by going to Washington D.C. to watch this rally, but by going to the voters themselves. If we truly want to prevent a further national mental breakdown, we need to ensure that ideological extremists don’t gain more traction. The efforts we will put forth during Get Out The Vote weekend will help dispel the media narrative of an electorate caught between melodrama and apathy.  We can simultaneously reassert the voice of reason in the American political system, and disprove the so-called “common wisdom” which states that American youth would rather be passively entertained than actively engaged.

If we haven’t convinced you that your time would be better spent getting out the vote through face-to-face interaction, the very least you could do is to spend those 20 hours on the bus to D.C. making phone calls, sending emails and Facebook messages to anyone and everyone you know to remind them, coax them, cajole them to get out and vote on Tuesday. If, however, you have realized how much more you could do to restore sanity by actively campaigning, we encourage you reach out to any one of the partisan or non-partisan politically active groups on campus to find out what you can do this weekend. The stakes are simply too high to sit idly by.

Evelyn R. Wenger ’11 is the Campaigns Director of the Harvard College Democrats, Lindsay M. Garber ’11 is the Vice President of the Harvard College Democrats