At Aretha Franklin’s funeral last August, Jesse Jackson made the following observation: “We have long lines to celebrate death and short lines for voting.” Let’s fix this shortcoming by acting on The St. Louis American’s pragmatic endorsement of Senator Claire McCaskill.
Voting for McCaskill does not mean that we forgive her inattentiveness to our community. Voting for her does not mean that our frustration at her failure to consistently and vigorously speak out in opposition to the president has dissipated.
Voting for her does mean, however, that we won’t be squandering an opportunity to better our future just because she is not our ideal candidate.
The senator’s record may suggest that she does, indeed, take our support for granted. But politics is a complicated business and Missouri, for a Democrat, is a complicated state. Senator McCaskill is not always with us, but at least there’s always the chance that she will come our way.
If Josh Hawley becomes the next United States senator from Missouri, we will have no chance to win him over – ever. Make no mistake: affordable healthcare, Social Security, and Medicare are all in Senate Majority Leader’s Mitch McConnell’s bulls-eye and he will rely on the new Senator Hawley to help him hit his targets.
We can’t afford our past delusions. Sitting out this election will not send McCaskill a message. Rather, not voting will only help propel a federal legislative agenda that will mean a grim future for us and for our children. Let’s get to the polls
