Don’t lose confidence in the election process

OPINION:

As we suffer through the most dismal and discouraging campaign cycle in recent memory, framed against uniquely challenging circumstances, it is crucial to remain focused on why we fight and struggle to find the right course.

Last week, I noted that Ronald Reagan’s speech to the Republican National Convention in 1976, after he had lost the primary, changed the Republican Party forever and for the better.

In 1980, Sen. Ted Kennedy, similarly defeated in the Democratic primary that year, gave a speech that captured for many of us the true quality and value of politics. That speech, too, changed American politics forever and for the better. It included much about which the left and right can agree, including the following:

“Progress is our heritage … The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures. Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue. It is surely correct that we cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but it is also correct that we dare not throw out our national problems onto a scrap heap of inattention and indifference. The poor may be out of political fashion, but they are not without human needs. The middle class may be angry, but they have not lost the dream that all Americans can advance together. …

“And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. … And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

“I am a part of all that I have met

Though much is taken, much abides

That which we are, we are–

One equal temper of heroic hearts

Strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

In the midst of the current campaign in which one side is trying to hide its candidate and its preferences, and the other side is indifferent enough to public opinion and meaningful discourse that it didn’t even bother to offer up a platform, it is easy to be cynical and lose confidence in the process. 

In these critical moments, it is important to know that what happens in this election year is, of course, important, but it is not the final word on anything. Reagan and Kennedy, both having lost their elections, spoke with clarity and conviction and cut right to the heart of the issue. Elections are important; a single election is probably not. No matter what happens this year, the dream — however you conceive of it — will never die, provided people are willing to work for it.

Reagan was right in 1976. The people for whom we fight — those Americans a hundred years from now — will know whether we succeeded or failed. For us to succeed, we need to make sure that Kennedy was right: that the work will go on, the cause will endure, the hope will live, and the dream will never die.

• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is the president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House.