The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

We bring you this editorial after the elections, but we wrote it before the results were in, on purpose. We wanted to make some points about this year's elections and elections in general - that aren't tied to the outcome, except for this:

If your candidate(s) didn't win, well, such is the nature of democracy. There were more people who voted for the other can- didate and, despite the fact that there are isolated irregularities in every election, we can feel blessed we don't live in a country with such problems as widespread voter fraud, massive voter suppres- sion and intimidation, or a one-party system.

And that means the results are reliably close to what participating voters chose for the country, the state, the county and so on. Bottom line when it comes to elections: they are what they are.

Ballot measures. One gripe we have against this year's elec- tions is the nature of some of the state ballot measures.

We're all for strong mandates and referenda. There are many instances where a direct choice by voters is important and desir- able. Do we want same-sex marriage? Do we want legalized marijuana? Do we want charter schools? Do we want two-thirds or a simple majority in the state legislature to pass tax and fee increases? All great questions to put before the voters.

But what about Engrossed Senate Joint Resolution No. 8221: A Constitutional amendment to phase down the debt-limit per- centage in three steps from nine to eight percent and modify the calculation, calculation date and the term general state revenue?

Did any of you scratch your head too when you tried to make sense of that one? Why are we being asked to decide on the direct management of government? Doesn't that smack of microman- agement? Isn't that why we elect our candidates: to make those tough, informed decisions, so we don't have to lay awake at night whether we should "phase down the debt limit percentage in three steps from nine to eight percent?" Does it even matter? The state doesn't have any money either way and politicians in Olympia have to make tough decisions. That's why we sent them there.

Same for Senate Joint Resolution No. 8223 whether two of our universities should invest in the stock market. Sounds like a sketchy idea to gamble with public funds, but isn't that something our lawmakers can decide? If in doubt, listen to what Mark Twain said about it. He always thought Monday was a bad day to invest in the stock market. He said the same about Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Presidential debates. We'd like to judge their success by the extent to which they addressed the future. What is this country, this world, going to look like and be like for our kids, our kids' kids and so on? The national debt, which has been pushed well into non- sustainability by several recent administrations, came up plenty. For that we are grateful. It's one of the biggest challenges facing our nation, though we're not confident it will be reversed any time soon. Neither candidate seems to have a viable plan. Even if they did, they wouldn't likely get the cooperation from the across the aisle because of our entrenched political divisions.

But what was glaringly missing from the presidential debate was the other mammoth challenge facing this country and the rest of the world: the environment. Polar bears are starving because the arctic summer sea ice they use as floating stations to hunt for seals has been shrinking in the last two decades because of global warming.

If you don't care about polar bears, you should care about the reason why they're starving. If not a generation from now then cer- tainly two or three generations from now, the children who inherit this earth are going to wonder why we didn't act our act together to stem or slow down global warming. At the very least, it should have been raised as an international security issue. Climate change can have severe consequences for the viability of food supplies in many parts of the world and could quickly lead to unrest and conflicts that affect us all.

Thanks for running. Lastly, we want to tip our hat to all the local candidates who ran for office. If you didn't win, at least to demonstrated a willingness to serve and to try to contribute to im- proving our communities. And you added to our candidate choices on the ballot. As we've said before: Don't stop at a run for office to serve your constituents. There are many government and other public entities - from commissions to boards of trustees - that can use your participation. If nothing else, look at it as a great experi- ence and qualification for the next time you run.