Election Day 2006

Tomorrow is Election Day. It is critical that everyone who is registered to vote gets out and votes. We have many important choices to make tomorrow, including who will be our next Governor, but we in Everett have a most crucial vote to make in who will be our next State Representative, a seat that was held for the past 16 years by the late Edward G. Connolly. The candidates are Stephen Stat Smith, who came within inches of defeating Connolly in 2004 and who overcame a strong opponent and the vicious attacks of a local newspaper in this year's September primary; and Joseph Hickey, a three term member of the Common Council who switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Independent in order to avoid a primary fight.

Regardless of whom you support, however, the importance of exercising your right to vote cannot be stressed strongly enough. In her book A Patriot's Handbook, Caroline Kennedy wrote the following passage regarding Election Day, and we think it sums up very well the value of getting out to vote:

"The day I feel most proud to be an American is not the Fourth of July, but Election Day. The right to vote is perhaps the most critical right in a democracy, the means by which we can create the kind of society that truly represents America. A woman who had been the victim of FBI harassment and who had sacrificed twenty years fighting for her First Amendments rights once said to me, 'It is up to us to create a government that is close to our heart's desire. Because,' she added, 'if you don't do it, somebody else will.' One only has to look at the lengths to which people went to deny others the right to vote to understand that we should never take its importance for granted, nor forget that it is an opportunity as well as an obligation."