Those familiar with TOA may have scratched their heads at one point in Sunday's post - why does the definition of leadership matter in this case? Haven't I said on multiple occasions that my vote will go to the candidate who is going to make more progress against poverty? If this is allegedly my number one priority as a voter, then shouldn't it be the only criteria with which I judge candidates?
Dear reader, I agree with your objection (and thanks for reading, by the way) but in this case I think I should have clarified that I had a hard time distinguishing the candidates along those lines. This isn't meant to imply that the candidates are ignoring the issue, but as usual no candidate has bothered to state in the simplest terms "my goal is to end poverty". The reality is that no candidate I'm aware of has ever made such a claim, which means that I've never really had an opportunity to vote along such lines. I'm looking forward to it, let's say, though I won't guarantee that I'll live to see the day.
I did make an attempt to think a bit more about how the candidates might indirectly represent this goal. If you asked me whose policies would leave us closer to the end of poverty, I would suggest Michelle Wu as being more likely to bring progress in this regard. However, as I look over their respective websites, I see examples of how someone might challenge my conclusion. The first paragraph of Wu's campaign website, for example, states a commitment to "closing the racial wealth gap", which I assume would be parroted by whomever decides to make the end of poverty an official campaign promise. But when I look at Annissa Essaibi George's website, it doesn't take long to get to her version of the same basic idea, which in her words is "fight back against economic inequality". It would be a disappointment if my choice loses the election, but at least I'll have the idea that Essaibi George will make some progress against poverty during her term.
I'm realizing that the problem with my criteria, which sounds so high and mighty in the abstract, is how a candidate truly needs to place it front and center before it can have any relevance. The question of poverty is of such a scale that it can't be dealt with as a secondary concern, or treated as something that will naturally ease over time due to the second-order effects of other policies. They say that climate change is one of the greatest issues of our time, and perhaps rightfully so, but such declarations forget that the claim hinges on the collective decision to ignore the problem of poverty, which has been central to the human experience since the dawn of civilization, and remains the only issue of all time. There are scores of candidates who seem to get it - change, change, change, something needs to change, they tell us they'll change it. But what is going to change? When I see the candidate that fits my criteria, it will be a commitment to a simple thing - change will mean the end of those questions, sometimes directed at me on consecutive street corners, from tired voices or fraying cardboard signs, asking me if I have any change.
