President's Message
 We are living in Partisan times
By Cathy Percefull
Listening to political shows and watching all the GOP debates, the discussion seems to turn to how polarized our political system has become. Speaker Boehner tells us Obama’s hostility to our Party is only to take people’s attention away from his policy failings. The President whines that Washington is a city that is failing to do the work expected by the people. Personally, I want less government, not more. I agree with President Reagan that government is the problem rather than the solution.
I do see more divide today between our political parties than when I joined Bella Vista RW back in the late 1970’s. We are living in partisan times. All we have to do is look at the voting records of our members of Congress to see more votes along Party lines than in the past. Several decades ago we would see alignments of conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats, and liberal Republicans with liberal Democrats. Today, we see less of these alignments. We can thank gerrymandering for more districts becoming deeper ‘red’ or deeper ‘blue’. We can even see this when we look at entire states.
Have you noticed that, along with our elected officials, the public is more polarized. The more religious a voter, the more that person votes Republican, and the more secular the voter, they tend to side with the Democrats. This seems to be holding true for social, economic and foreign policy issues. Another consideration is where we get our information today is different from past years. New media, such as, talk radio, blogs, cable TV, and political magazines, allows a voter to obtain pretty much all their information on an issue from a source echoing their ideology. All this seems to be deepening the divide between our citizens.
An advantage of this divide is that there is a ‘choice’ for people when they are presented with alternative solutions to our nation’s problems. I can hear Goldwater’s phrase, “a choice, not an echo.” Many people are beginning to think about what they believe, rather than just make an uninformed vote on election day. News shows say that voters are turned off by all the disagreement between the parties. But, look at the voter turnout when the differences between the parties and our candidates are more obvious. Voters turn out in record numbers when they have a clear choice. A large voter participation is considered a good thing, our citizens exercising our right to vote. This is a privilege that many people around the world die for. I think we now have a real choice, not only of differences concerning important issues, but differences in how the Parties view our nation’s founding principles.
Our great nation is facing huge issues and at some point, our lawmakers will have to seriously meet our problems of debt and deficits with bipartisan agreement. We also face a world in turmoil and we need a foreign policy with the support of both parties. We are living in partisan times. The next President will inherit a mess – domestic and foreign. As we look forward to the 2012 election season, let’s get out there, work hard for our candidates, and take back our country before it really is too late.
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