If you ran (or are running) to become the Mayor of Baltimore, thank you.

With the flames from the uprising still smoldering in our minds, each of you ran toward this trouble with energy and ideas needed to rebuild this city. In the dim light of neighborhood churches, in crowded technology labs and large conference rooms, each of you has pointed toward solutions to problems which continue to divide and weaken our city. These forums and debates have been informative, civil and based on hope.
Most of you have been working for years to strengthen our city.

Don’t stop now.

What Baltimore needs more than a powerful mayor is a powerful shared vision and empowered citizens ready to build our future.

You can help create this.

A city wide forum and working group can bring together experts, volunteers, and children study and create solutions to our shared future. In this campaign you have talked about the need for more citizen involvement, more efficient government, and using new ideas to create a better future.

As citizens, you are in the most powerful position of our democracy. If you take this challenge to build the real power of Baltimore, you will change this city in far greater ways than you could from the Mayor’s office.

This morning, my son and I will walk up a grassy hill and wait in line with our neighbors for the moment we get to slide into the voting booth and make our marks toward his future. It’s a tradition of hope and anticipation as powerful as imagining what’s inside a wrapped present or the dream of a winning lottery ticket. And it’s often as transient and disappointing. On the battlefield of election night, more candidates will grumble out concessions than sing out victory speeches.

Election day is a scheduled revolution against our standing government. It is the boldest of bets that we are worthy of choosing our future, peacefully. Or that we won’t let this choice be stolen from us by money, power and our own indifference.

The fraying of the bonds that hold us together have laid bare the harsh realities of our times. When the road is pocked with potholes and debris, the rules of the road change. The pundits and court stenographers stammer on, shaken and mistaken at every turn. The horse race coverage of politics has always been misleading in the most dangerous way, counting out campaign coins as votes and trumpeting the way for court jesters as they strut past the people and problems of their community. There will be more analysis of the Raven’s defensive line than of policies which rob children of their health and education or their parents of their jobs.

This is an interesting year for voting and we will be joined by many more people on our walk up the hill to vote.
But the real difference in our community and our country will come from what we do after we walk back down the hill.
Who will we help? What will we do?