Somewhere a bell was rung and another epic moment in human history begins.
It seems every generation suffers some calamity that must be overcome. In Thomas Jefferson’s day he thought: ”The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
The Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression and then World War II all brought great fear and challenge.
The tyrant we now fight is something called a virus that is not even able to replicate itself (a defining characteristic of animal and plant life), unless it finds its way into the living cells of an organism. In this case, us.
I wake up every morning hoping that I am no longer in the Twilight Zone, but the eerie quiet seeps in and brings me back. Back to the horror of what might happen to those without resources, those unable to protect themselves and those who will put themselves in harm’s way by rushing into hospitals and labs to help the sick, or those keeping the food on our shelves, the utilities operating or just helping their neighbors.
We are all scared and we all want to help out, particularly those kinds of people like you who would build something like Vote Smart.
I take some solace in knowing how smart Vote Smarters are, knowing that you will take all possible steps to protect yourselves and help fellow citizens when you can. All this and arguably the most important election in history rumbling behind this dreadful scene and about to crash right on top of us.
Know this: your Vote Smart staff is not abandoning ship, not that they have no fear, there is real fear. In fact, two of our office staff were ordered home by their doctors but have improved, from what, we do not know.
As for the rest of the staff members, each understands the importance of what we do, what you made possible, and how crucial Vote Smart is to the coming elections’ outcome. So, each has set up an office in their own home, where they find the most clever means to continue their research and install each day’s updates into that Voter’s Self-Defense System you created and on which growing millions now depend.
The only people that will be coming into the offices are our National Director, Walker McKusick, and four others, Annie Petersen, our Research Director, James Wypych, our Courage Test Director, Jacob Petterson, our Communications Director, and Mackenzie Carlson, our Office Manager, all to coordinate our 20 staff working out of home offices. The office doors will be locked, the office sanitized daily with each Director working in their own separate individual office area.
The staff’s efforts remind me of an old word rarely used today: moxie. That is what your staff has, a whole lot of moxie.
Stay safe, this world cannot afford to lose you.
Richard Kimball Vote Smart President