VOTING

The host of the One More Round Podcast discusses the importance of citizen participation in politics. He mentions that the financial state of Radford City is not being reported on, and accuses local news outlets of being afraid to challenge city officials. He encourages listeners to be more engaged and vote in local elections. He also discusses the qualifications for running for office and expresses his skepticism about candidates who work for Radford University due to potential conflicts of interest. Welcome to One More Round Podcast, where we learn that every time we point a finger, we're pointing three fingers back at us. Now, let's get in the ring. Hey, welcome to One More Round Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Keith Marshall. Today, we're going to get right back into some politics, but this time, it's going to be a little more personal. We're not necessarily, unless I just go slipping off into a, down a rabbit hole, we're not necessarily going to talk about any individual candidates. We're going to talk about ourself. I think the title that I gave you here, it's not representative government if we do not participate. I believe that says a lot. I believe it kind of explains the direction I'm going to go, and I'm going to jump in there pretty tight. I want to thank you, though, as I do for all those that tuned in to the last episode. I believe we called that Meetings, Lies, and Letters that continue to decline of Radford City. I want you to know that as we speak, that episode has moved into the number one slot of all downloaded podcasts here at OMR. It's taking the top. It beat out the 12 Plagues of Radford. If you've not heard that one, it's a good one, too. That's in two parts. Go check that out. But this particular podcast has struck a nerve, and I've been hearing a lot from people that seem completely surprised about what's going on. I will say this. I don't blame you for being surprised. Unless you're listening to my podcast, my episodes, and we're fast approaching around 30 episodes, many done on Radford City. But if you're in Radford City, and you were not aware of the financial state of the city, it's completely understandable. We've had a dereliction of just solemn duty of the Radford News Journal and the Roanoke Times. They do not do real press here in Radford. They simply reprint or rewrite stories that the local city officials and politicians give to them. Why? I think because they're scared. They want to keep their jobs. I do remember a time when I was on City Council, and there was a particular man out in the community that was writing a lot of letters to the editor to the Radford City News Journal. I won't mention his name. Some of you may remember. And he was hammering the city pretty good. And I will say this. I only agreed with him about 50% of the time. Some of the things that he said, I didn't agree with. Now, he wasn't necessarily going after me, but I was an elected official in government at the time. So you could think maybe he was. But I knew it really bothered the people, the other elected officials and other officials within the Radford City Government. And you know, he unceremoniously was stopped from having letters in the News Journal. I always suspected that there was probably a phone call that went out to the News Journal, and they wouldn't print anything he had to say anymore, which is a shame. And I'm sure if they could turn me off, well, I know if they could turn me off, they would do so. I would not be surprised if you don't see some sort of attack go towards me or towards OMR to try to get me to stop telling you about what's going on in the city. But just going back to what I was saying, if you've not heard about the financial state of the city, I'm not surprised because there's just not anything out there reporting it. People are not talking about it. Your elected officials surely are not really talking about it. They're starting to now because they don't have a choice. But it was only after it was brought to light. I would have preferred personally to have read it in the newspaper or learned it in another forum other than by myself. But it is what it is. So, you know, if you're just learning that, I'm noticing some of you are kind of binging through the podcast because I'm seeing a lot of episodes grow. And I appreciate you listening. I really do. I appreciate the faith that a lot of you have put into the information that I'm working hard to bring you. I'm doing my best to make sure it's accurate. It's straightforward. You can tell that it's factually based from actual materials that I'm finding, that I'm reading to you, like the superintendent's letter that I read in the last podcast that came out last week. So, I'm trying to bring you that information. But today, I'm going to really talk to you about being a good citizen here in the city of Radford. And I think a lot of the things that I am going to say to you, you're going to agree with me. And I believe that, you know, the majority of you probably practice these, but many do not. I think we believe that most people are as civic minded as we are. They're showing up, they're voting, they're participating. And I want to tell you that they're really not. You would be shocked at the number of people that do not vote in local elections. There are some people that vote only in presidential elections. There are some that will vote in presidential elections and maybe a state election, maybe a few local elections, but they won't vote in primaries. I think mainly they don't vote in primaries because they're afraid someone will figure out what affiliation they are. So, they stay home. I don't like that. I think that's just, I don't know, I hate to call you a coward, but it sure feels cowardly to me when they do that. But anyway, I wanted to go over four points, four points that I think are important for us all if we're going to be participating in representative government. You know, representative government, we obviously are picking people to represent us. And we, and by them, we have a voice in what happens in our city, our state, or nation. But I will stick with Radford City for today's meeting because we do have a deadline coming up. I believe it's the first, end of the first week of June, beginning of the second week. I don't have an exact date. I can't look that up. Let's see. Yeah, here it is. Here it is. It is June the 18th. We have two slots open in the Radford City School Board and we have two slots open under Radford City Council. You have to have your paperwork and all your signatures and everything filled out and turned in and approved by close of business on June the 18th is the date that I had scribbled down here. And so if you don't have it in by then you can't run. And if they do not have a number of candidates, let's say we have two spots on city council, if they only have one person to put in for that, then the other seat will be filled by a write-in or something like that. It's happened before, but it's kind of a shame because we really should have people that are running and getting involved in those elections. So in order to have representative government, we have to have people that are going to represent us in those spots. And you know, they go, they're elected, and we're supposed to have a voice or an advocate for us within the city government in order to get things done, for things to be done in a way that we believe is fair, equitable, however you want to put it, done properly, done with some common sense. We're looking for individuals like that. So if you are someone who, and I will talk about that a little bit in my last point, but I tell you what, no I tell you what, we'll just do the last point first. The last point is be involved. So the first thing I would, I guess I'm gonna have to throw out at you is, how about you? Have you ever considered running for political office? Now I can't sit here with a straight face and tell you that it's for everybody. It's not. I served for eight years on city council and there were some times it was tough. Overall, overall I enjoyed it and I learned a lot and I felt like I did a pretty decent job as far as making sure that the citizens of Radford, the regular blue collar working class people, had an advocate there on council. Someone who was making sure the store was being minded properly. Someone who was making sure your taxes weren't going through the roof. Someone who was making sure you weren't being cheated or swindled or somebody was getting a better shake than everybody else. I was trying to watch and make sure, along with others that were there, I was trying to watch and make sure that Radford City government was run well. I felt like that was my charge. Could that person be you? Now let's talk about the qualifications. It's a really long list of qualifications and here it is. You have to be eligible to vote and you have to live in the city of Radford. There are your qualifications. Now I want to tell you something. I said this to a good friend the other day and we were talking about getting people to run and who might consider running and we were just throwing out some names and talking about things, but there's one thing that I believe with all my heart. In order to have real and fair representative government, the people should not come from one class or one group of people. Obviously we need to have people from all races and all types, sizes and all jobs, but it tends to be, for some reason, in the past at least, there seems to be certain people that always seem to gravitate towards those positions. People that are in, you know, oftentimes people that are professors and people that work for Radford University. I see that a lot. I got to be honest with you. I'm not supporting anybody that works for Radford University that's going to run for council. I'm just, I'm going to be a strong advocate against that. Not because I don't think people that work for Radford University are good people or could do a good job. I just do not believe that they can fairly represent the city with the kind of obvious influence that I have uncovered personally and that I believe shows personally the influence that Radford University has over its employees that are elected to public office. You may be the best person in the world, but you need your job and I'm scared for you that they will put you in a horrible position where either you lose favor with your employer or you have to gain favor with them by doing what they say. And I don't want to put you in a position like that, so I don't want you in there. And I know that makes, I know there's a lot of people in Radford City that work for Radford University and I think that's a good job. I think you should be proud of where you work. And I think overall as an institute, as a higher education, a bit, or not a business, but as a higher education entity, I think they're wonderful. They put out a good product. I'm just concerned about some of the influences that I've seen there, negative influences, that I've seen in there in the past towards the city. And I just don't think I want to go there right now. Maybe you can convince me otherwise. I'd love to hear from you, but I'm just telling it like how I feel and I'm just going to be honest. But we see people from, you know, professors and other higher end people from Radford University running, people that run departments or are highly involved in the administration of the university. You know, we often have seen people that, you know, are, you know, considered doctors or lawyers or in higher positions and those are fine. We need all types. But I'll tell you what we really need on city council. We need a good, and this is school board as well, a good percentage of just moms and dads and blue collar people. People with dirt under their fingernails, there's nothing wrong with that. People that work hard for a living and expect their tax dollars to be spent in a fair and just a common sense way. They run their homes in a way that's frugal. It's well thought out. It's well planned. They know how to make a budget. They know how to add and subtract from their checking account. Unlike some that are running our city now, they're tough. They're used to facing adversity. They're willing to stand up and they won't be bullied. Those are the kind of people that we need in every level of government. And, you know, there's no age restriction on that. Just because you're 65 or 70 years old or whatever doesn't mean you can't serve a term on council. You know what? There's a lot of wisdom with gray hair and we could use some of it there. There's not a lot of wisdom there right now in any level of government, any branch. So, hey, you've been around a while. You've raised kids. You've raised grandkids. You know what's going on. You know how to balance a budget. You're done with trying to please people. You're not looking to have people pat you on the back. You just want to do a good job and be proud of it. We could use you in the city of Radford. We need you. Likewise, if you're young, you know you have some core principles, some core conservative values. That's what I'm looking for. You believe in common sense spending. You believe in balancing your budget. And by the way, saying that you balance a budget and not living within it, not having the money to pay your bills, just saying, oh, look, we balanced the budget. Well, you know what? Who do you think you're fooling? You're not fooling anybody. You haven't balanced a budget for several years. The truth is. But if you're somebody that can stand up and make sure others are accountable and you can look at the numbers and you can make sound decisions, do a little research, hey, you should consider running. It's not that hard of a job. You know what the hardest part about being involved and running for office is? It's the fear of what others are going to say about you. It's the fear of being ridiculed. It's the fear of being a post on Facebook. I understand that. I know exactly how that feels. I know how it feels about to be lied about online and in the paper. I know how that is. But I also know how it is to come to the realization that, you know what? I'm doing this for a little bigger cause than Keith Marshall. And maybe you can insert your name in there. You're doing it for a little bigger cause than yourself. And you can do a good job. You can represent your citizens, your family and your city well. I think you should consider, you know, you could ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that you could do? I mean, it's not like you're going to run the city out of money or you're going to get way behind in your light bill and have trouble making payroll. It's not like you're going to have to get a payday loan in order to keep the lights on and the bills paid in the city, right? It's not like you're going to go out there and use your position at work to help influence what the city does. It's not like you're going to not pay the schools. Oh wait, well, that's already been done, right? You're not going to do that, are you? The bar's not set real high for you to do a good job. Consider running. And you know, besides running, there's other ways that you can also be involved. You can give money to those that are running. You know, it's expensive to buy those signs. I paid for most of my campaigns myself. I did have some donations, but I put a lot of money into it myself. Those signs and those brochures that you hand out are very expensive. You can help someone that way. Certainly, you can hand out stuff in your neighborhood for good candidates. You can put signs up in your yard. Be a little bolder. Put away the fear a little bit and stand up a little bit for what you believe in. It's the American way of doing things. It really is. Stand up and be a patriot in your own community. Don't always spend your life being uninformed and being afraid. Which brings me to my next point. Be informed. Find out what your candidates stand for, how they believe, how they say they're going to vote. I know they don't always vote the way they say they're going to. And I have supported and picked candidates that have not always represented my values. But that's on them. Because I did my research, I got the answers that I needed. And if you do the same and they don't follow the principles that they say they espouse, well, that's on them. That's not on you. But you need to be informed. You're not going to be able to find all these things out in the newspaper because they're not going to print it. You're not going to get an accurate picture of how your elected representative is doing right now. And you're probably not going to get a great picture from the newspaper from a few questions and answer things that they put out there. The forms are not great ways to figure out how your candidate will do. The questions are often scripted. Good questions are excluded. I know because I went to some of those meetings and I've asked them really good questions and they don't get asked. So how do you inform yourself? Number one, make the personal effort to speak to the person individually that's running. Ask them to stop by your house and have a cup of coffee or sit on your porch and talk. Find out for yourself how they feel about specific issues that are important to you. Do look at the questions that they ask. And I think there needs to be some better questions asked. And I'm considering, I don't know if I'll get any kind of participation, I'm considering sending, whoever runs, sending out a questionnaire of my own, an OMR, one more round questionnaire, about specific questions that I would like to be answered. Do you think they would answer them? I don't know. Maybe I'll give you the opportunity, the listener, to help come up with some of those questions and we'll send out a questionnaire and we'll see which candidates have the guts to answer them. I don't know. I think it might be a good idea. We might try that. But be informed. Ask good questions. Show up at forums. Show up at those things, yes, but make a point to speak to that person eye to eye and directly. And maybe you can do that through email or contact them through social media that way. And you can ask very direct questions and expect very direct answers. You can do that at the local level. You cannot at any other level. So you don't have an excuse to not find out how the person feels on specific subjects that are important to you. And don't be afraid to ask those tough questions. What else can you do? You can be vocal. We've covered be informed. We've covered be involved. And now we're going to talk about being vocal. Well, how can you be, what do you mean by be vocal? I don't mean yelling at someone across the room at a ball game and calling them a dirty low-life politician. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that even if you disagree with them or they deserve it. That's not the right etiquette. That's not the way you should act. That's not how we should treat each other. But you can be vocal. Let me tell you one way you can be vocal. You can write letters to the editor about how you feel. You know, the one thing that the papers kind of like to do, they kind of like to print letters to the editor. Most of the time, not always. But you can try that. Write a nice, informed, respectful letter giving your opinion. Write it to the paper. Send it. Speak to your neighbors about good candidates. Knock on doors and talk to people in your neighborhood. Take the opportunity to share good posts from good candidates on social media. Take the opportunity to express your opinions in different ways, whether it be on social media, through emails to friends, through, you know, like I said, the editor letters to the editor of the paper. Shoot, maybe you can start your own podcast just like I did. But be vocal. Don't be afraid to use your voice. Quit being afraid. You know, I noticed this especially with Republicans. We like to keep our thoughts and our feelings close to our vest. And I get that. That's my natural tendency, too. You're probably like, yeah, right. It really is. I have had to work myself out of this shell that I keep myself in. Number one, because I don't think, I don't value my opinions enough to think other people really need or want to hear them. And a lot of this is just a release for me. I've mentioned that before. It's a release to get this information out because it just balls up inside me. It drives me crazy to know things and know that I'm the only one that knows it. I want to tell you I'm being vocal, okay? I'm speaking the truth that I'm learning. I'm getting it out there. You can do the same. You can share my podcast if you don't do anything else. You can share it. You can pass it on. You can mention it to people. I've had several people contact me over the weekend and say, hey, Keith, I shared your podcast with 35 or 40 people this weekend. I want to tell you, I appreciate that. That is a way to be vocal, to share information that you're learning with other people. Get the word out about who's a good candidate, who's a bad candidate. Get the word out about who is leading us in a good way and who is not. Get that information out. And finally, I've covered, I've covered be involved. I've covered be informed. I've covered be vocal. And the last one I'm going to talk about is be accountable. Now, what do I mean by be accountable? Well, I want to tell you this, and this goes for me and this goes for everyone else. We are responsible. We, as the citizens of Radford, as the citizens of Virginia, as citizens of the United States of America, we are responsible for what happens within our borders. We choose our representatives. And our ability to choose and the people that we choose are directly reflections of how we do all of these things, being involved, being informed, being vocal. And the final one, we are accountable for the people that we choose. It is our job to vet them. It is our job to think about running ourselves and getting directly involved with our time, with our money, with our opportunities. It is our job as Americans with the greatest freedom. No one in this world, no other country in this world has the freedom, the First Amendment like we have, the freedom to speak out and to make a difference in their own community, to inform people about your views, about things that are going on. I would not have this opportunity in the majority of the world. I really wouldn't. Not to run this podcast, not to be as direct as I am, not to speak the truth to power. You just do not have that. There's all kinds of restrictions. Even in the free countries like France and England, there are still tons of restrictions on what you can and can't say. We don't have that here now. We're watching it slip away. And when I finish this podcast, one of the last things I want to do here at the end, I want to read you a section of the farewell address from Ronald Reagan back in January of 1989. It's a time period that I remember very well because that was my formative years. Ronald Reagan was president for those eight years through the 80s. And I remember that time very well. He was my president that I grew up with. I can remember the difference of how people felt about the country when Jimmy Carter left versus how they felt about it when Ronald Reagan left. And I think many of you that are closer to my age or maybe even a little older will remember the stark difference in how we felt about our nation under Ronald Reagan once he left. He was very well beloved. He represented the strong patriotic belief that we can do better than this. This is a special country. We have an obligation to make sure that we are strong and we're productive and that we're living together in a harmonious way that is good for everyone. That it wasn't about individual self, but it was about a nation as a whole. And it's the same thing for the city. We have a responsibility. We are accountable for the fact that our city has no money. We are accountable for that. We are Radford City citizens and we're not paying our bills. We're accountable for that money. We chose those representatives and they may have misrepresented the truth. They may have not done their job properly, but they're our representatives in our city. We're accountable for that. And if we want to have, as the title of the podcast says, if we want to have representative government, we have to participate. We have to get involved. We have to be informed. We have to be vocal and speak out. And we are and we have to be accountable for our own actions. I cannot put it better. They called Ronald Reagan the great communicator. And he mentioned that in this particular speech. And I encourage you to go and listen to the whole speech. It's a good informative swath of history, but it's also a speech given and some instructions given by a very wise man. And I think it's important that you listen here for a second and hear them. Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells. And I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough, it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past eight years, the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge. And informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught very directly what it means to be an American. And we absorbed almost in the air a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea, or the family who lost someone at Anzio, or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that too through the mid 60s. But now we're about to enter the 90s and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't re-institutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, and freedom is special and rare. It's fragile. It needs production. So we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion, but what's important. Why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father who had fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanata Henn, and she said, we will always remember. We will never forget what the boys of Normandy did. Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of that, of the American memory that could result ultimately in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics, more attention to American history, and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. And let me offer lesson number one about America. All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let them know and nail them on it. That would be a very American thing to do.