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CAN POLITICAL CIVILITY be
The institute, established 15 years ago, was founded to "identify, educate, and train emerging leaders," according to its Web site. In all, around 1,000 people have graduated from its program. Sixteen Sorensen alumni are in the Virginia General Assembly (two senators, 14 delegates), more than 100 have been elected to local office, and many more serve on boards and commissions around the commonwealth and the nation.
Various programs at Sorensen are aimed at high school and college students, first-time candidates, and community leaders. At the heart of each lie three areas of concentration: ethics in public service, the power of bipartisanship, and a concentrated study of public-policy issues. The institute is nonpartisan, takes no sides on issues, endorses no candidates, and gets involved in no mediation between political figures.
Sounds good, doesn't it? But will it work? Executive Director Bob Gibson says although the institute is working on ways to measure results, the evidence it has collected so far is all anecdotal: Graduates of the program are staying in touch with each other and reaching across aisles to further the public's business.
But here's a key point: PBS did a documentary on the institute that aired in May. At the unveiling of the show, called "Across the Aisle: Returning Trust, Civility, and Respect to Politics," former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, director of U.Va.'s Miller Center of Public Affairs, had this to say:
"Where do Americans learn to be civil these days? Not on cable news, not during national elections that turn on scandal and misinformation. It is difficult to find the lesson in our school curricula. Just as Tip O'Neill used to say that 'all politics is local,' so, too, is civility. Getting along is how we get things done. We are polite to each other at home, at work, and in the marketplace. Yet politics, even the local variety, is so cutthroat, you wonder if society is off course."
Wise words. Incivility begins at home, and at school, and on the roads, and in the grocery stores. Incivility begins when we allow passions to go unchecked and courtesy unpracticed in our everyday life. It spreads like wildfire through the society via conversations and the Internet and yes, the conventional media, until it has permeated all of society--including politics.
The Sorensen Institute is working to change the political culture, to provide alternative methods of arguing policy and pursuing public office. Bravo to them. The rest is up to us.
