VOTE and ‘Arrive with 5’

There are just a few days left. Less than a week. On Tuesday, Nov. 6, we will know the results of the 2018 midterm elections. If you have not voted early, you still can, until Sunday here in Florida. And of course, you can always vote on Election Day. Every vote must be counted. Including yours. 

Now, for those who have already voted (and for those who have yet to), your job is still not done. There’s more that you can do. I stress this because of the importance of these elections. 

Arrive with 5

A few years back, right after the turn of the century, during a campaign in Florida to reduce and control the number of students in each public school classroom, a then state senator by the name of Kendrick Meek, who later became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, started a campaign known as “Arrive with 5.” The idea was simple: You vote, but you also make sure that you’ve brought at least five other persons to cast ballots. For those who might remember, that election became a heavyweight, political battle between Meek and his forces against then Governor Jeb Bush, who opposed the class-size amendment. In the end, Florida voters agreed with Meek and voted overwhelmingly in support of controlling the number of students in each Florida classroom.

The person who helped design and organize the winning “Arrive with 5” campaign was a young student out of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. His name is Andrew Gillum — now the 39-year-old mayor of Florida’s capital city, and Democratic Party nominee for governor.  

I know his campaign has started to again use the “Arrive with 5” idea going into the final weeks of his terribly important campaign for the next governor of Florida. And if you’re wondering why I stress “terribly important,” just look around at what has transpired in the past few weeks as a result of a racist, impetuous and out of control president who insists on driving this country down a dark hole nobody can be sure if we will ever be able to get out of…

And why Gillum? Because the person he is running against, the Republican in the race, is there because of one man, Donald Trump. And Ron DeSantis, the Republican, has made it perfectly clear along the way that whatever big daddy Donald wants, big daddy will get — if DeSantis becomes governor. 

So that’s why I insist that you vote for Andrew Gillum for governor of Florida. And while you’re at it, vote Democrat right down the line this year. And bring five others with you to the voting booth — or drive them there. They can be family members, friends, neighbors… I don’t care, but drive people crazy and make them vote. It’s their right, but it’s also a duty and a privilege we can’t forsake — especially this year.

And there’s good reason. We must wrest power from a reckless president who seems only worried about himself and his ego. All the time creating enemies and governing based on hatred and fear — not a winning combination for the country.

And why Democrat?

I recently read a very enlightening interview in Mother Jones. David Corn talks with Max Boot, a conservative’s conservative who writes in his book, The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right, that “Only if the GOP as currently constituted is burned to the ground will there be any chance to build a reasonable center-right political party out of the ashes.”

And his reason, says Boot:

“I’m ashamed to admit that it took the emergence of Donald Trump. I was in my conservative bunker, and I thought this was a gross libel against the Republican Party to claim that we were catering to racism, or that it was a libel on America to claim that America was a pervasively racist society. And then Trump came along and I realized, ‘Wait a second. There is a much larger constituency for racism and xenophobia than I had realized.’ And it made me think, ‘Oh, my goodness. This is why a lot of people were voting Republican.’” 

In other words, there is a cancer roaming around American politics and Tuesday’s election is an opportunity to surgically start removing what ails us. 

I’m optimistic. If people continue to vote, as many are doing, I believe Gillum will become Florida’s first black governor. But not only that, here we have a young man who preaches hope, love and positive actions to help ALL Floridians as we confront the many challenges facing us going forward.

And there’s an interesting dynamic occurring in this elections cycle, as a result of Donald Trump. Compared to other midterm elections, persons in Florida seem to be coming out in record numbers. 

Some Democrats I’ve spoken to are worried because early voters seemed to be favoring the Republicans. Historically, from what I’ve seen in the past, those numbers even out on election day and the last weekend of early voting. But there’s also one other interesting development that I have found speaking to more than a few Republican friends. Mind you, these are real Republicans, the kind that adhere to conservative values, but detest racism and politics based on hatred and fear. 

These Republicans seem to be mimic Max Boot. One of my cousins, for example, a Republican I rarely ever agree with politically, just called me yesterday to proudly inform me that for the first time in his life he had voted Democrat down the line — at times not knowing the people he had voted for. 

I hope people are waking up and decide to take back America. And there’s only one way I know how to do that: VOTE!