If You've Been There for Years, Where Is the Change?

For the last couple of months, I couldn't go anywhere in Oklahoma without passing the same kind of campaign sign. Big change for education, big change for jobs, big change for families, big change for our future. The wording shifted a little from sign to sign, but the promise was always the same, and it always sounded like something was finally about to happen.

What kept bothering me was the name printed underneath. A lot of the people promising big change weren't running for the first time. They were running for a third or fourth term, which means they had already spent years voting on budgets, sitting in committee meetings, and doing the exact job they were asking us to give them again. So every time I passed one of those signs, I ended up asking the same question: if you have been there this long, why hasn't the change already happened?

The election is over now, and the signs are starting to come down from yards and road shoulders, but I don't think that question should come down with them. If anything, this is the best time to ask it, because the people who won are about to spend another two or four years in the same job, and the next round of signs will be back before we know it.

I can't vote yet, but nothing stops me from paying attention, and when you pay attention you start to notice when a promise and a record don't line up. A candidate who says they will fix our schools has usually already had chances to do something for schools. A candidate who promises to bring jobs to small towns like Tahlequah has usually had years to show us those jobs. A candidate who talks about lowering costs for families should be able to point to the vote where they actually tried. None of this is about one party or one person, because the habit shows up on every part of the ballot.

The reason it matters is that a sign and a record are completely different things. A sign can be designed, printed, and staked in the ground in a few weeks, and it only has to say what the candidate wants you to hear. A record takes years to build, and it shows what the candidate actually did whether they want to talk about it or not. When a campaign leans entirely on the first and stays quiet about the second, voters are being asked to judge someone's future without looking at their past.

I think a lot of adults have gotten used to this. They have seen the same promises every election for so long that they shrug and figure that's just how politics works. I'm new enough to watching it that it doesn't look normal to me, and I don't think it should look normal to anyone. Letting people promise the future while ignoring what they did with the time they already had is how the same problems keep getting promised away election after election.

Holding someone accountable doesn't have to mean being angry at them or assuming the worst about them. It just means asking a fair question: you had the job, so what did you do with it? If the answer is good, a candidate should be proud to say it. Tell us what you passed, what you stopped, and what is different in our state because you were there. That is a campaign I can respect even when I don't agree with every vote. But if the only answer is a new sign with the same old words on it, we should notice that too.

So when the signs go back up next time, I hope people look past the slogan and ask how long that person has already been in office, what has changed since they got there, and what is different in their school, their town, or their family because of that person's work. Big change is an easy thing to put on a sign, and it would mean a lot more if we could actually see it in our own lives.

Luke H. Johnson is an independent columnist, author, and co-founder of the Northeastern Journal.