‘Am I really adding anything…’

A look at columnist’s political past, future

The day of the annual State of the Union address, I remember part of me not really looking forward to it. I anticipated the huge amount of partisan commentary I’d see online and the dozens of pundits and analysts dissecting the speech and GOP response as much as possible. Everybody just had to say something whether it was smart, dumb or indifferent.

And no, I’m not going to give a long drawn out analysis about it. Both the speech and Rep. Paul Ryan’s response had their high points and low points. But I bring that all up because it relates to a question that I’ve been thinking about for a while.

Am I really adding anything to the political debate? And even if I am, what am I actively doing to change the things I talk about?

I became involved a few years ago and definitely learned a lot. But there’s still so much more to learn.

I remember the first political blog I started was something called “I Just Want The Problem Fixed.” It was inspired by a guy in a political science class that said, “I don’t care which party it comes from, I just want the problem fixed.”

It stuck with me because I, just like the large swath of middle America, feel the same way. No one party has all the right answers all the time and I never understood why people were foolish enough to believe that was true.

Recently I learned of a group that advocates a number of things that I do and truly seems to be a bipartisan effort. It peaked my interest.Now in politics, you never reveal all your cards so I won’t go into too much detail about it. But after watching it’s activity over a few months, I come to the conclusion that this that next venture I should be active in.

I’ve always wondered what my role in politics was meant to be and even now I’m still not 100 percent sure, but I think this new direction at least might aide me in making it clear. I truly appreciate the opportunity the paper has given me and if there’s anything I want you to take away from this, it’s to just get involved. You don’t have to make it a career, but at least give it a try to understand how the process is. Whatever you’re interested in, there’s a place for you to make a difference. Just recently there were even NFL players on Capitol Hill attempting to lobby lawmakers. There are always opportunities out there. I had hoped not to get into any cheesy or cliché lines but seriously, making a difference really does start with you.

Posted by Ian Bridgeforth on Jan 27 2011. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.