Genuine

 Maybe it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Vice Presidential Debate held this past Tuesday was one of the most cordial events to be associated with the pending election. Not that Julius Domingus Vance and Tim "Fixit" Walz are specifically polite toward one another's views and ideals. The polite, for the most part, exchange could be a reflection of these two men's Midwestern roots. This means to the outside observer that these two men were treating each other with care and respect, but for those watching in the Midwest, this was a knock-down-drag-out. 

Instead, I would like to suggest that this Vice Presidential meeting of the minds was mostly about paying tribute to one of the most decent human beings to hold public office: Jimmy Carter. The man who had the supreme challenge of bringing our country out of the morass that was Watergate celebrated his one hundredth birthday on October 1. The man who said, "We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams," and "My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way." 

That last one is a far cry from the current state of our political rhetoric, but it shows how this man was able to bring Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat together to forge a peace between Israel and Egypt. His honesty and candor got him into trouble at times, but Jimmy Carter did not shy away from the truth. And he expected us, as a nation to be able to handle it. With inflation raging and an energy crisis that saw gasoline at nearly a dollar a gallon, President Carter did not make empty promises, but rather he asked us all to look within ourselves to help bring our country out of the stupor of the late seventies. Traditionally referred to as "The Malaise Speech," it opened the door for political opponents like Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy from his own party. 

Jimmy Carter was ushered out of office by what is now referred to lovingly as "The Reagan Years," and the 1980s were a monument not to a commitment to individual accomplishment and support of one another, but a hazy decade of greed and excess. Jellybeans for peanuts, if you will. 

And now, forty-four years later, the United States is faced with another crisis of confidence. Will we follow the path of the former game show host, a morally bankrupt caricature of Ronald Reagan, or will we be drawn to the legacy of the man who founded Habitat For Humanity? 

It's no debate for me.