Which is Worse, Campaign 2012 or Hurricane Sandy?

The storms slamming the east coast are tragic, costly affairs that have and will continue to cause misery and suffering. With God’s grace, the communities in the wake of this storm will emerge safely from the wind, rain, floods and snow and lives will return to normal quickly. I do not want to minimize the human misery Sandy is bringing. My thoughts and prayers are with those living through it and those who have lost it all. However, Hurricane Sandy should serve as a powerful reminder. Life is fragile and, all too often, we spend too much of our mortal breathing moments focusing on the unimportant.

My Buddhist friends tell me a storm like Sandy is further evidence everything is connected – the good, the bad, today, yesterday, tomorrow, you, me, people we will never meet, animals, insects, earth, air, sea; you get the point. Standing witness to earth’s natural power does help one understand this. The Sandys force us to stop in our tracks and reflect. That is good. It is kind of a shame it takes devastation or calamity to force us to do something so simplistic and basic to life.

Campaign 2012 will be over next week. This race has been nasty and, in many ways, counterproductive to our national progress. We voters have allowed billion dollar campaign machines to divide by distracting us from that what binds the American people in the first place, a belief every person deserves freedom. We have focused on the negative, the accusations, and disagreements.

Here’s hoping when the political storm clears and media chatter returns to non-election year banter, Americans will think more about what unites, than what divides. We must replace choosing sides with working together to build something better.

Elections – this one in particular – resemble hurricanes. They destroy and devastate until they run out of energy. But, much of what causes a hurricane is beyond our control. We can construct stronger buildings and fortify our coastlines, but beyond that, the best we can do is hunker down and wait a hurricane out.

Elections are an invention of man fueled by money. We have the ability to interrupt the campaign path of destruction by demanding candidates rise above the squabble. Candidates respond to voter reaction. It is time we voters tell candidates we expect ideas and integrity, not blame and marketing gimmicks. Most of all, we must cutoff the fuel source feeding this destruction by limiting campaign funding.

The American spirit will be evident as people from across the country selflessly step forward to help those trying to regain their footing after being knocked down by the storms. It will take an even larger and longer cooperative effort to bridge the partisan divide formed during campaign 2012. I would like to think Americans are up to the task.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.