ProgressOhio

If you're like me, you've been to a family reunion this summer where -- after the chicken and potato salad have been attacked, and the kids dispatched to the playground -- the talk inevitably turns to presidential politics.

Up until this year, at least in my extended family, this usually meant spirited disagreement when the Red Herd finds out there's a Blue Bull amongst them (that would be me).

But this year, the discussion was more disturbing -- and depressing.

"Who do you like for President?," asked one of the old Red Bulls, a guy who I know for a fact thinks Bush is too liberal.

"Definitely, Obama," I replied, girding for battle.

"Oh, yeah, I guess," replied Red Bull. "But it doesn't make any difference, does it? They're all crooked."

And we went back to watching the Olympics on televison.

Later, talking with a cousin who I suspect is cautiously non-political, the same question was asked.

"Obama," I said. "I like the way he's getting the young people involved."

Oh, yeah, I guess," she replied. "But it doesn't really make any difference who's elected, does it. They're all the same."

Now this "they're-all-the-same" approach may be a good way to avoid offense at a family reunion, but it does reflect an increasingly common attitude which is a cancer on our democracy.

So with my sweet cousin, I decided to keep the conversation going.

"No, actually, it does make a difference," I said. "What would have happened if Lincoln hadn't been elected...or FDR? Don't you think the history of this country would have been a lot different, for the worse?"

At the Open House last night celebrating the opening of the new offices of the Licking County Democratic Party, Congressman Zack Space, D-Dover, was also taking about the upcoming election from the historical perspective.

"This is going to be the most important election since 1932, and one can make the argument that there's been no more important election cycle since the Civil War," he told the volunteers and candidates who crowded into their new Church St. command center.

The news this morning, by the way, is that Space's predecessor, former Republican Congressman Bob Ney, will be released from federal custody on Saturday after being incarcerated for corruption in connection with the Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Space has spent the last two years in Congress and in Ohio working hard to improve the economy of his sprawling Southeastern Ohio district. Ney was convicted after getting swept up in the Washington pay-to-play game with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. So are Space and Ney equally corrupt because they're both politicians?

And did it make any difference that 18th District voters, seeing how they had been duped, decided to shuck off their traditional allegiance to the Grand Old Party in 2006 and vote instead for a conservative but progressive Democrat like Space?

No, they're not all corrupt and they're not all the same, and we shouldn't let people -- even those we love, at family reunions -- get away with such a cynical dismissal of the whole political process. This is not a time to remain silent about your candidate or your hope for a better future.