Prayer for politicians
The West Virginia Weakly Election Day Extra for Tuesday, November 5, 2024
I’ll keep this brief because (a) it’s going to be a busy day (b) your inbox is probably already full of email related to Election Day and (c) I need to get some sleep today because it’s going to be a late night. I’ll be in the newsroom in Washington, D.C. mainlining coffee and trying to parse what’s happening in real time for radio listeners.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about what may or may not happen today.
Probably overthinking it. Pretty sure I’m not alone in that.
But trying to figure out where the ballots will fall before they hit the ground seems like a fool’s errand and too anxiety inducing, so I’ll leave election divination to cable news and simply tell you about a long ago image that’s been running through my head.
Somehow, my brain has dredged up a brief snapshot from an election day in the late 1970s — a fleeting memory from before I was old enough to vote of a lanky young man wearing a worn pair of jeans and a wide-brimmed, floppy hippie hat preparing to cast a ballot at the elementary school in my old neighborhood in Charleston. Holz Elementary, in case you were wondering.
That young man must have been just 18-years-old, or thereabouts
And he was excited.
I know those things because in my mind I can hear him responding to a question from someone on the sidewalk that led into my old school.
He said, “It’s my first time!”
If you’re bound and determined to take a peak at how in-person early voting played out in West Virginia, here’s a link to a spread sheet maintained by Secretary of State Mac Warner’s office.
It shows a record number of West Virginians — more than 310,000 — went to the polls during the ten day early voting period that started on Oct. 23. And it breaks the totals down by county and party affiliation. Kanawha County voters led the way, followed by Monongalia and Berkeley Counties.
Polls open today at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.
We’ve had a lot of new subscribers since the last time we explained why we spell “weekly” with an “a.”
We took the name of our newsletter from the masthead of the old West Virginia Hillbilly, whose editor, the late Jim Comstock, used “A Weakly Publication” as a humorous tagline. We have a lot to live up to.
Speaking of Comstock, I thought it would be a good idea to share something he wrote about Election Day. I sought inspiration from the book, Best of Hillbilly, the 1968 collection of Hillbilly articles compiled by Otto Whittaker. I didn’t see anything specific to voting, but I did run across the following:
Prayer for Politicians
At the dedication of a bridge the other day in Harrison County I got to thinking about the prayer that the man of God made, and received a revelation, which I suppose is the best test for the efficacy of prayer. He prayed for the “governor, the members of congress, and the members of the state assembly.” I got to wondering why he chose those whom the ballot blest, instead of other members of society, teachers, lawyers, physicians, and of course, editors. The idea came like that dove flying into the kitchen, that politicians perhaps stand most in the need of prayer.
My first time voting was near my home on the West Side of Charleston. The place was known in the neighborhood as "Spark's Garage." On Delaware Avenue, between Hall and Grant streets.