– Editorial – - Now is the time to lead

By Editorial Board

For the past week, pollsters, pundits and party hacks, have picked apart the election results, with the usual mix of hand-wringing and celebratory gloating, that comes in the aftermath of any election.

With the election behind us, it is time for actual leadership and for officials to get down to the business of government. It is a time to stop talking and start doing.

By any measure, the election season has been a historically long one, seeming to have carried through the entire term of the current administration and clouding every action, at all levels of government.

The election took place. The votes have been counted and are in the process of being certified by boards of canvassers. There were winners and there were losers. The people have spoken and made their choice. Historians, generations from now, will debate if outcomes were good or bad.

It is now time to put away the campaign signs – state law requires campaign signs to be taken down within a week of the elections. It is time to take down the banners, put away the buttons, badges and paraphernalia, and move on with our lives.

It is time to mend fences with our neighbors and recognize that while there are political points we may disagree on, there are many more things we share in common.

The vast majority of Americans want quality education, in a safe environment for young people. The vast majority of Americans want to feel safe in their homes and their communities. They want to feel secure that their job isn’t going away and that their paycheck will cover their living expenses, and give them the ability to set aside money for the future.

That doesn’t change, based on the message on the hat you wear or the bumper sticker on your car. Those things, which unite us as communities, states and a country, are far greater than those which divide us.

The election season is over. It is time for our elected officials to get to work and start doing their jobs, rather than raising money and running to get re-elected. It is time to put the billions of dollars that were bled off the economy by the political machinery in the past year, to work, in building a brighter future for everyone.

America, in the post election world, remains as evenly divided on issues as it has ever been. Moving forward as a country, will take cooperation and compromise, and the willingness to put the good of our communities and country, as a whole, above personal disagreements.

It is time for the constant pressure of politics to ease and for Americans to get back to living their lives.

Members of the Courier Sentinel editorial board include publisher Carol O’Leary, general manager Kris O’Leary and Star News editor Brian Wilson.