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Show Editorial Election Fever It's going to be a long summer an election summer. Both major parties are priming for the race for power this fall and both are calling on voters to "unite behind the party banner for victory." Both are calling on loyal party members to blindly back the entire slate of candidates candi-dates and "win this year." With all due respect to the leadership the parties provide and their talent for bringing organization out of what otherwise would be chaos, we feel they are missing miss-ing the point in their call for unity. Since the ultimate power at least theoretically rests with the citizens, it is not for the political parties to demand or even call for support. Rather, they should furnish the leadership, candidates and programs which will call forth the voluntary volun-tary support of the power-holding citizens. While the major parties are loudly crying "lo here" and "lo there" the thoughtful, informed citizen is evaluating, evalu-ating, not the party as a mass, but the separate candidates candi-dates and programs. On the basis of this evaluation, he will support and contribute to certain candidates rather than an entire party. If everyone did this, both parties would be on notice that they HAD to furnish the best candidate possible for each office. Voters would then have a choice between two good men instead of, as is often the case, two political poli-tical hacks. This is the foundation of effective, responsible responsi-ble and economical government. Party loyalty is fine if the party in question deserves de-serves it. Unfortunately, they never do completely. In nearly every election, voting a "straight ticket" elects a few inferior candidates which, unfortunately, proves to be the easy way out. The same holds true for voting a list of "approved" candidates, regardless of who has approved them a church, a union, a profession, or whatever. A voter who really wants to fulfill his responsibility will avoid this "easy way" like the plague, and make a conscious con-scious effort to seek out the best candidate, regardless of party. Those who really want good government dare do no less. They need do no more. If this independent analyzing analyz-ing is done by everyone, the best candidate: will win, regardless re-gardless of his party's ticket. In the process, good government govern-ment will become a reality rather than an ideal. Someone said once that "the time will come when no man can live on borrowed light." That time comes for every man when he steps behind the voting curtain and, without aid or advice, determines his nation's destiny. |