Letter: Endorsement letters for candidates are ‘downright silly’

I’ve been closely following Grafton’s local politics for several years now, and one thing that always strikes me as downright silly is the tradition of writing letters to the editor in support of candidates.

Each letter is rarely more than jumble of positive adjectives, a superficial listing of prior experience, and an occasional anecdote. They provide no context, no contrast, nothing of value. The sole bit of substance they do provide is a connection: this author supports this candidate. Honestly, every single letter could be effectively reduced to one sentence in that format. The only reason I can imagine for these letters is to reach readers who know and trust the author but not the candidate, and might think, “Wow, my friendly neighbor has known this candidate for 17 years? I’ll vote for her too!”

If that’s you, if you don’t know the candidates but you know some letter writers, I implore you not to outsource your own good judgement. We’re all bad at some things, and we all have very good friends who are bad at some things. Perhaps your friendly neighbor is good friends with someone who isn’t so good at the things Select Board members need to do, but your neighbor feels obligated by the relationship to support their campaign. Or maybe your friendly neighbor is a very nice person, but they prioritize their values differently than you do and want different things for our community than you do. Your vote is yours, not your friendly neighbor’s, and you have not a right but an obligation to use your own judgement and cast your own informed vote

Instead, take the time to get to know the candidates. Look through their Facebook campaign pages and websites, watch videos of their meetings to see them in action, and actually reach out and have a conversation with each of them. That’s the best thing about these local races: there are so few voters, the candidates can actually have conversations with a large percentage of them! The candidates all have contact info available and they’d each love to chat with an undecided voter. Or if one doesn’t want to chat with you, I guess that might help you narrow down your options.

Please do your own thinking. Request your mail-in ballot, get informed, and vote.

Dan Cusher