Brian Greenspun warns political candidates not to forget about ‘We the people’

Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006 | 7:25 a.m.

Here is a conservative notion. Not the new "conservative" of today's world, but the real conservative of years gone by. It is called the U.S. Constitution.

Specifically, the preamble which, for those of you who don't remember or never learned it, goes like this:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I have repeated it here for a couple of reasons. First, it was always my favorite memorization in school because it represented the heart and soul of the country for which our Founding Fathers worked and fought so hard to bring into being.

Whenever there was any confusion about what this great country of ours stood for - and in the last 20 years or so there have been a great many people trying to confuse us - I would refer to the preamble because it said in just a few words what every American should know and live instinctively.

The other reason is the way it starts. "We the people ..."

Whenever there is some confusion about how we should act, for whom should we vote or in what should we believe about our democratic system of government, there are always too many people willing to give us the answers. That results in a high degree of anxiety that can be simply dealt with if "we the people" remember our place.

And that place is at the top of the democracy food chain.

I am reminded of this truth because I have been asked too many times this week to explain the headlines in the morning newspapers that proclaim that state Sen. Bob Beers and Rep. Jim Gibbons have joined hands, embraced and become best friends.

If you recall, the two men ran a very spirited, hard-hitting and emotion-laden campaign against each other for the Republican nomination for Nevada's governor. In fact, they called each other the kind of names and accused each other of the kind of activities that should have put a permanent rift between the two and caused their supporters to take to the pitchforks.

When they embraced each other this past week in the spirit of party unity, it threw a number of people off because, as voters, they had eaten the red meat that was thrown at them and had fallen prey to the emotional attacks that were meant to cause exactly that kind of reaction.

My answer was simple. That's politics. After the primaries are over and the people have chosen, it is expected that the candidates come together for the good of the party. That's the way it has worked since the beginning of our time in this great democracy.

That answer has not helped. There are a lot of Nevadans who are still confused because they are regular people with regular emotions and regular ways of dealing with one another. When they get so emotionally involved with one candidate or another, it is not easy for them to turn their hearts and minds off the way the politicians do. In the old days when politics was far more civil and people disagreed only on ideas and ideologies, it was easy for opponents and their supporters to embrace.

But in today's world, political races are run by experts in marketing, brand awareness and poll-driven advertisements designed to twist and turn the electorate so that by the time a primary is over there are people bleeding on the floor - that is a figurative description, please - who are in no mood to help the enemy. The fact that the enemies embrace just doesn't compute. Hence, the confusion.

That's when I have to refer people back to the preamble to the Constitution. Something upon which we can all agree.

That starts with "We the people," which should end all confusion.

We have it in our power not to fall prey to the slick advertisements and 30-second sound bites. We have it within our power to challenge those who want our votes to discuss issues and not personalities or personality disorders - unless the disorder bears directly on the office being sought. And we most certainly have it in our power to reject those candidates who get us emotionally charged by feeding us the red meat of modern-day elections.

There is no way that we can ensure domestic tranquility when we continue to invite our candidates to make our blood boil and our brains go numb during election cycles. Only we can insist that candidates speak the truth by coming out from behind the slick advertisements and the 30-second commercials that tell us nothing.

I know it is a conservative notion - telling the people the truth in a way they can understand the differences between the candidates - but conservatism is in these days.

Let's see if we the people have the strength to demand that democracy be better served by the candidates. And let's see if the candidates can respect the voters sufficiently to come out from behind the kind of campaigns that serve only themselves and leave the voters confused.