Vote Smart's President, Richard Kimball, shares a few words about our generation's challenge to saddle up, and defend our right to the facts.
I was about 7 when the wrangler lifted me up and put me in the saddle. I was scared. It was a big animal and I grasped the reins tight -- too tightly as it turns out. The horse reared up and dumped me off into a prickly pear cactus.
It was a painful hour in the nurse’s office with a pair of pliers. I did not want much to do with horses after that.
But it is time for me to saddle up again, like it or not. Our nation is in trouble. Like that cactus, our government seems covered with pricks, making our institutions inept, our officials irresponsible, and our candidates’ behavior reprehensible. Without what we are building at Vote Smart, truth will no longer catch up with lies and selfish interests will not be set aside for the common good – our civic society, our power to stay free dies a little every day.
This is our time, this is our generation’s challenge. We have the means to rein these people in and bring an end to this agony eating at the very heart of our society. Just like our Founders we must trust that the people can self-govern if only we can assure them of abundant, accurate, relevant information.
Right now, in our offices, we have volunteers and interns, both conservative and liberal from all over the country signing up to wage a battle for the truth. Part of my job is to make sure that each of these volunteers has the tools (the pliers) needed to yank out the pricks, reveal the truth, and give the people the facts so essential in their job to self-govern.
It will be the most extraordinary mid-term election in our life-time and we need you to saddle. up with us. Please join Vote Smart, volunteer if you can, but even if you can do neither, use Vote Smart to defend your right to the facts.
We need every thinking American.
Richard Kimball
Vote Smart President