Congratulations to all Candidates

Today is election day in Rhode Island and Massachusetts as mayors and council members or selectmen as well as school committee members are on the ballot.  In other states governors and state assembly members are also on the ballot.  While this is a celebration of democracy, it is also a sad reminder that since the early 1990s politics has changed in America and not for the better.  We are polarized on too many issues.  There is a marked lack of civility that is often underscored with the anonymity that the Internet and social media provide.  Regardless of the new challenges facing candidates for office or for that matter what the office is or the party is, I remain much more of an optimist than a pessimist.  
Political campaigns, at least on the local level remains general "real" rather than a contrived Madison Avenue marketing campaign.  Rather than selling soap, local candidates put themselves forward, warts and all, and ask their friends, neighbors and even strangers to believe in them and give them a chance to lead our cities and towns.  With that said, the words of Theodore Roosevelt of April 23, 1910, delivered at the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, when at the time he was the former President of the United States remain germane to all others who dare risk triumph and disappointment and more as they enter "The Arena."  
 
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who  comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows  great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,  and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know  victory nor defeat."
 
Congratulations to all candidates for office.  You dared to make a difference...in the arena!