Running for Office

My church helped the local food pantry in their primary food drive and fund raising activity “Freezin for a Reason” held in early December.  It’s always a cold day it seems.  We were lucky enough to be tasked with work inside, making some sense of the huge flow of food in cans, boxes, and jars streaming into their small facility.  Boxes of food were collected, put in big cardboard containers, then placed on wooden pallets, moved to the outside of the pantry by forklifts, waiting until they were slid into an open area inside the pantry.  Our crew of a dozen or so church members segregated it loosely by type of food and got it to shelves and areas around the perimeter, making room for the next wave.  It was classic “make hay while the sun shines.”  The community was providing its pantry food and we were helping them absorb it. 

Handling food is hard work.  Boxes of cans and jars get heavy quickly.  As we emptied those big containers the reach to the bottom became harder and harder.  I was just about to bend in once again, my head nearing my knees, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.  It was Beth Osmund.

“Don’t do that Dave, you’ll hurt your back.  Let me.”

Beth had just come in from outside to see how we were doing.  She swung one leg over the side of the cardboard wall, then the other, disappeared and came up hefting a big box of canned green beans to me.  She continued that way until the floor of the container was cleared, then went on to another task.  

That’s the kind of worker I expect Beth Vercolio Osmund will be if we can get her through the Democratic primary next Tuesday and elected to Congress in November in the mid term elections.

Beth has a degree in Special Education and in addition to teaching, has put it to use in creative ways.  She worked as an educational consultant with a software company training teachers and as a professional skills trainer at Arthur Anderson, the accounting firm, teaching accountants how to work more effectively with their clients.  She is now the director of Ottawa’s local food pantry and a partner with her husband Jody in Cedar Valley Sustainable farm.  I know her as a friend, a mother of three boys, and as a supporter of local organizations.  The Osmunds were early donors to our church’s monthly free community lunch program.  They pitch in when they see real need and they support local causes of critical importance.

It’s funny, but when someone you know well runs for office it matters little to which party they belong.  Rather, you imagine them representing you with the values you see firsthand in them through the way they talk and the way they behave in the community.  The truth is no candidate can have a firm grasp of all the many issues to which members of congress must react.  In the end we need to elect legislators who are smart, analytical, good listeners, and comfortable with compromise.  Kindness and compassion sweeten the package.  I think Beth has all those qualities.

Beth is certainly not the only person in our community to display those characteristics, but the amazing thing about Beth is she is willing to run.  I think anyone who spends time trying to affect policy, getting to know legislators, and working issues with a political body during its legislative session considers how they might better do the job of those we elect.  But for many, including me, it’s a fleeting thought.  I don’t want to work that hard for starters, nor spend time away from home, raise funds, talk constantly to those trying to influence your vote, and withstand the attacks of those who oppose you.  Run for office in this political climate?  Are you kidding?

I talked later to Beth at a more quiet time at the food pantry, early in the morning before it buzzed with activity, about that very thing.  Why do you want to do this?  Here’s more or less what she said.

“First, I think I know the district well.  It’s a rural and very grounded part of Illinois, rooted in large part to the farming community and small town life.    All the issues which confront us in 2018 affect us all.  For example, when we talk about “environmental issues” that triggers thoughts of a set of actions attributed to the left.  But I farm.  And I have yet to meet a fellow farmer who is not deeply concerned with caring for the land.  Farmers have to make a living, and yet we know our way of life can only be sustained if we are smart about managing our land and water.”

“I get that Beth but why run?  I know you understand the demands of the job.  It looks to me like a huge task, and a huge commitment.   Why put yourself and your family through that challenge?”

“That’s not a a simple answer.”

“It’s OK.  I’ve got time, and I really want to know.”

“Well, in 2012 I attended a seminar, training really, called Vote, Run, Lead.  It was designed to encourage women to be more active in politics.  I’ve always voted, have been in plenty of leadership positions, but had no intention of running for anything at that time.  I wanted to know more about affecting the process.  How I could become a better advocate, and help create forward thinking policy.

And I did.  I joined a national organization of women in agriculture.  I became a USDA grant reader.  I attended a national sustainability summit.  All through this my husband was very supportive, and I knew I was making an impact.”

She paused. 

“And then I got this food pantry job.  Not the biggest or the best job I’ve ever had, but so important.  You always learn new things.  I learned this.  There’s this thing with food pantries.  You can be judgmental and try to force nutritional choices on people, like refusing to distribute some foods with empty calories or questionable value, or you can ‘give what you get’.   The classic example of not following that motto is highly principled pantries or co-ops that give out only brown rice because it is more nutritious.  That’s fine, but most people prefer white rice.  Here we accept what food the community gives us, we buy wisely with the dollars donated to us, but in the end we offer needy people the kind of food they are used to eating, and we keep them fed.  We give what we get.  It hit home to me, that saying.

And then I thought of the converse saying,  we get what we give.  And I realized it applies to politics.  While it may be fine for a food pantry to go along with the flow, the status quo of food norms, if you ascribe to that in politics, and government, we don’t advance as people, or change happens so slowly you end up frustrated and disillusioned.  I want politics to change, as I sense many people do, and I can’t just sit back any longer accepting the kind of candidates and the kind of politics the parties now offer us, with someone else defining the issues and the proper responses to them.

So what do you do when you reach that point?  For me the answer became clear.  You run for office.  I realized if you aren’t willing to involve yourself more you will continue to get the same old thing.  So here I am.”

“And you know what you’re getting into?”

“Of course I do.  I know it will be demanding, create big change in my life, present me with challenges I can’t anticipate, but I’ve done all that before.   I know exactly what I’m doing Dave.  And I’m willing to do it.”

So there you go.  If Beth Vercolio Osmund is willing to run, I’m certainly willing to vote for her.  I hope you are too.

I know many Dave in the Shack readers live outside the 16^th Congressional district.  If you do, I urge you to find fresh, young, reasonable, pragmatic candidates like Beth and sending them to Washington, or Springfield, or more local government with your votes.  We need fresh reasoned voices speaking for us.  Thankfully they are beginning to emerge.  Please support them.