EDITORIAL - Dealing with election losses

If politicians are to be believed, they run for public office because they want to serve, well, the public. In the mind of politicians, however, service is almost always associated with winning. You lose and you do not serve, right? Wrong.

If they also serve, even those who just stand and wait, then so must all election losers, who merely lost an election but not their purpose. For as long as election losers do not lose their ability and willingness to serve, they can serve in a variety of ways.

For instance, election losers can serve by simply accepting their defeat. By accepting defeat, they allow tensions to die down, set aside political conflict and allow life to move on after the disruptions of an election.

By the simple exercise of humility, losing candidates can serve their communities well. More importantly, they succeed in projecting a better example of their real selves, something no candidate is ever able to do during the campaign, where everybody is a cynic.

On the other hand, refusing to accept defeat and launching into a protest is disruptive and divisive. Rather than court the trust of the populace, it instills resentment, especially if on account of the protest the normalcy of life in a community is compromised.

One classic example of this is the town of Compostela, where an election protest filed in the aftermath of the 2010 election resulted in the suspension of proclamation of all winning candidates, leaving the town with no functioning officials.

For roughly two agonizing years, the town functioned under a caretaker ill-prepared to carry out effectively the normal duties of officials. As a result, a lot of basic services were left undelivered and the town ground almost to a complete halt.

This is not the kind of consequence that should befall any town simply because some candidates got lucky and won and some just did not get the chips to fall in their direction. And that is how all elections should be seen, as a fickle process one can win or lose.

The only real loser in an election is the one who cannot accept defeat. Election losers who do not lose sight of their true worth as persons are able to pick themselves up with dignity and move on to fight another day. Communities thrive in the presence of these persons.