From Ferguson to you

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: November 4, 2008

OK, folks, if you need any help getting psyched up for voting today, listen here to your new fellow American, Craig Ferguson.

Ferguson is a native of Scotland, but he naturalized in January of this year and will cast his first vote for president in California today. He covers politics and current affairs frequently on his late-night talk show on CBS, “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.“

His perspective on American politics fascinates me. Here is a man who loves this country and wanted to become a part of it so much that he paid a price to earn the privilege that most of the rest of us simply take for granted every day.

As a comedian, Ferguson has had his fair share of laughs about the election and our candidates. But he gets downright poetic when he talks about the right to vote.

Watch this clip from his Sept. 10 show (transcript of operative portion follows):

If you don’t have time for the full clip, here’s the two-minute version: Ferguson was detailing his disdain for voter registration drives like MTV’s “Rock the Vote,“ and his comments about Americans’ civic responsibility to the ballot took off from there.

Are we so lost we have to be sold our own democratic right? … We have to sexy up the vote for young people? … Here’s what I would say: If you don’t vote, you’re a moron.

I know what you’ll say: ‘Not voting is a vote.’ No, it isn’t. Not voting is just being stupid.

Voting is not sexy. It is not hip. It is not fashionable; it’s not a movie, it’s not a video game, all the kids ain’t doin’ it; frankly, voting’s a pain in the a—. But here’s a word – look it up: It’s your DUTY to vote. The foundation in this democracy is based on free people making free choices. So, young people, if you can’t take your hand out of your bag of Cheetos long enough to fill out a form, then you can’t complain when we end up with President Sanjaya.

Listen, I’m an American. This country is at war, right now. Americans in foreign lands wearing uniforms representing this country are losing their lives. Americans here in this country are losing their homes. We have two patriotic candidates, right; they both love this country. They have different ideas about what to do with it. Learn about them. Read about them. Question them. Listen to them. Then, on Election Day, exercise your sacred right as an American, and listen to yourself.

“Listen to yourself.“

If a newly naturalized citizen who has been an American for less than a year can get it like this, what’s wrong with the rest of us?

I have sometimes heard it said that real Americans aren’t born—they’re made, through hard work and sacrifice and grit and love of country, an unyielding determination to succeed and a simple refusal to fail. So citizenship, then, isn’t about geography. It’s about integrity.

Craig Ferguson: American.

Aren’t you proud he’s one of us?