The convention speech no one asked me to give

Madam and Mister Chairmen, honorable delegates, bold candidates, current officeholders, heart-string pullers and tweeters of all stripes: I proudly and humbly accept your nomination as voter for the highest office in the land.

I recognize, by your cheers and sustained applause, that you have placed on me a great burden, one that overwhelms me and takes away my breath. Please excuse me for a moment as I gather my wits and try to get the blood flowing back to my brain.

You see, I am a member of the Next Generation, the one whose parents were -- and I say this with tremendous pride -- members of the Greatest Generation. Some of you would label me and my fellow Americans as the Medicare Generation, but I am here to tell you that we are a force to be reckoned with.

Why? Because we, more than any other group of voting age in America, are the ones who faithfully fulfill our duty when polling places open on Election Day. We are the ones who actually watch the convention proceedings of both parties, hoping to glean some small kernels of insight and wisdom.

And we in the Next Generation have already survived enough elections cycles to know we have to boil the campaign rhetoric to distill the few facts that are likely to be uttered during this time of political TV ads, wild accusations and endless robocalls.

And tweets? Yes, we who have watched our hair turn white (the lucky ones) or disappear (the not-so-lucky ones) are rarely the recipients of high-tech messages with strange abbreviations and even stranger cartoon characters. But neither are we fooled by campaign promises and mudslinging. We are the ones who shake our heads and sadly wonder if candidates ever wonder what their mothers would think about the garbage that comes out of their mouths during the final weeks leading to Election Day.

We in the Next Generation are the ones who, encouraged and supported by parents who wanted us to have better and more prosperous lives, understand that there can be no such thing as free college tuition and massive tax cuts at the same time. We understand universal health care comes with an enormous price tag. And we understand that even limited government requires us to pay our fair share, as we grouse about taxation and runaway government spending and federal debt that promise to choke all of us to death.

As your designated voter, along with millions of others all over this great land, I am faced with a fearsome task. I am being asked to choose among candidates who present themselves as "outsiders" or "honest politicians" or "political iconoclasts" and then proceed to act like all the other politicians and tell us outright lies and make ludicrous promises.

I am the voter who must choose, in the race for the presidency, between a candidate who says he is my voice and a candidate who says she listens. If candidates raised their children the same way they treat voters, we would have to spend millions of dollars for foster care for the offspring of politicians.

Good politicians, like good parents, have to know when to say no. If we voters say we want free this or government-sponsored that, candidates must be able to say, "No, we can't, in good conscience, do that." But a good candidate, like a good parent, would add: "Here is something you can do for yourself that would go a long way in providing you with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Or maybe you can come up with an even better idea."

As a voter, one option I have is to not exercise my right to cast a ballot. In my opinion, that would be a terrible choice. Yes, it is easy to say the major-party candidates for president make it difficult, for a variety of reasons, to support either one. But the divide in the philosophy of the Democrats and the philosophy of the Republicans is pretty cut and dried. So buck up. Choose. You can be for limited government and promises of spending controls that never materialize, or you can expect government to provide everything. That's not a choice for this candidate or that candidate. That's a choice for which party comes closest to your vision of a land that is free and is respected as the leader of the free world.

My fellow Americans, I can promise you just one thing: I will take my role as voter very, very seriously. I will earnestly consider the campaign promises and the personal attacks. I will, to the best of my ability, make a choice that will make you proud. I will not squander the precious right I have to cast a ballot.

I will vote. And I will do so with confidence. I accept my duties as voter with great pride, just as I hope the candidates are proud of the words they utter and the promises they make.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.