Close, but No Cigar | Sojourners

Close, but No Cigar

Letter to the Editors

Paul Wellstone had it right (“Behold, The Dreamer Cometh,” by Korla Masters, Doug Mork, Duane Shank, and Peggy Flanagan, September-October 2012). Unfortunately K Street, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, George Soros, and every other big-name donor have done their best to marginalize the voices of the rest of us.

Back when I was a kid, the local ward leader used to stop by our house and hand my dad and grandfather a cigar wrapped in a $2 bill, with a reminder to vote the Democratic Party line. Now we get inundated with mass mailings, robo-calls, and non-stop TV and radio ads telling us who we should vote for. Looking back, I kind of miss the personal touch of that $2-wrapped stogie as a means of getting a political message across.                                

 

Joseph Grieco
Manchester, Connecticut

This appears in the December 2012 issue of Sojourners