He Needs His Team
As you probably know, I’m a registered independent, and my ballot is typically pretty split…hardly a straight ticket vote for a single political party.
For whatever reason, I was thinking the other day about a time back in college…quite a while ago, going back to the election of 1984. Ronald Reagan was running for re-election and some of us covered his appearance at what was then called the Cedar Rapids Airport, followed by a picnic lunch with supporters in the yard of a church in Fairfax.
Reagan was trying to help Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Jepsen, who was in some trouble in a re-election fight against a young Congressman from Central Iowa named Tom Harkin. Sen. Jepsen was not doing himself any favors during media interviews, and Harkin was billing himself as a moderate who was against wasteful government spending. He typically would pull two bolts out of his coat pocket to make the point, saying one was used by the military and cost hundreds of dollars, while the other cost a quarter at the local hardware store.
After the election, some of us were having coffee one morning in between classes and talking about the outcome…Reagan won, Jepsen lost. One of our group said he voted for Reagan, but not Jepsen…another, however, said while he didn’t care for Jepsen, he still voted for him, along with Reagan. When asked why, he simply said, “Reagan needs his team.”
I can’t say that in the two generations since that time we’re any more pure or any smarter in our voting. But it makes sense to some degree. How can you expect the person you vote for at the top to be successful if the person is battling legislators from the other party? Then again, blind obedience to party label, as I’ve said often, is really lazy.
I’m a big fan of voting race by race, and am glad we got rid of straight ticket voting in Iowa. But in voting race by race, sometimes it is helpful to remember that concept of team.
