EDITORIALS

The People Yes

Election Day, U.S.A.

— After all the speechifying and gerrymandering, it is the day the people have their say.

Few sights are more inspiring than a great people in all its variety quietly deciding, one by one, its future course. Few days so sum up the twin values of this Republic: liberty and order.

Early in the afternoon the Friday before election day 2012, in Little Rock, Ark., the county’s little regional building across from the courthouse was filled with early voters, lining up politely, and being assisted by an efficient yet friendly staff directing them to their own little voting booth. As each cast his ballot, they would be replaced by others filing in all day long. Who says Americans are apathetic?

Here there were no drumrolls or resounding speeches, just voters finally having their decisive say after all the tumult. It was as inspiring a sight as any patriotic pageant, probably more so. This was the reality of America, and it needed no histrionics to make its point: We the People will make our own decisions, thank you. Ever so politely, respectful of ourselves and others, but here it is we who decide.

WHEN symbols of American government are displayed on calendars and websites for largely decorative purposes, they tend to be imposing vistas of the nation’s capital-the Capitol, say, or White House. They are meant to impress, and do.

Yet it is the simple scenes that may come closest to depicting the spirit of this Republic, and its greatest yet humblest theme: Here the people rule.

Norman Rockwell may come closer to capturing the American spirit in his folksy, even hokey, calendar art than all the magnificent statuary assembled in Washington, D.C.

Election Day in this country is a kind of work of art itself, as well as the result of a lot of planning, organization and just plain hard work and good spirits. For it happens every time: After all the tumult of the campaigns from coast to coast, after all the disputes over voting times and the wording of the ballot in all the strikingly different states, a great peace descends upon the land. And yet election day is not so much a sudden break with the sound and fury of a democracy, but its culmination and

Editorial, Pages 24 on 11/07/2012

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