The Joy of Local Politics

 I have a confession to make. I'm already exhausted by the US Presidential Race. As a lover of politics, I have so many great memories of watching the Presidential Debates with friends from college, jumping around with excitment during the convention coverage, and live tweeting during Presidential Election Night with friends in different time zones. It's April, and the primary season has already made me feel tired.

During this frustration period of "zoning out" of the National Conversation about the Next President of the United States, I found myself "zoning into" the excitment of local politics in my community. I live in a city of around 18,000 people in a county of around 100,000 people about 75 miles from Washington, D.C. In the past few months, I've noticed that the local political talent around here is amazing. 

Here is one new friend who is running for WV State Senate, David Manthos. The guy has a contract from Google to help save endangered fish populations from overfishing around the world. His ideas for my community in West Virginia are amazing. 

Winchester Hopkins is another local talent running for Martinsburg City Council. 

As I get out of my narrow pattern in life and talk to new neighbors, I find a lot of commonality. I'm energized. I'm hopeful. I realize that I've been living this life of "local eating" and "local homeschooling," yet I hadn't make the transfer of focus of caring either the same, or more about the leadership inside my own community, as I do about national politics in Washington, D.C. 

I'm starting a new idea inside my head of "Act Local." I Eat Local. I Buy Local. Now, I want to Act Local, too.