There is a moment — quiet, usually private — when someone decides to run for public office. No crowd. No applause. Just a choice: step forward, or stay comfortable where opinions carry no consequence.

After writing editorials for 50 years that thrashed politicians like borrowed mules, I grew impatient and ran for office. Everything after that got louder. From the outside, campaigns look orderly — forums, mailers, polished statements. But that’s the brochure version. What unfolded was something closer to exposure than performance.

The day a candidacy is declared, the boundary between public and private starts to thin. Histories are reopened. Words are replayed — sometimes accurately, sometimes not. Motives are assigned with confidence by people you’ve never met. In small communities, that shift doesn’t take long.

In 2024, I found myself on the eve of a five-way primary race with a polished incumbent who had crushed all previous comers and by all predictions should have left the field littered with dejected contenders. Instead, I ended up in a general election run-off with the landslide artist.

True believers say an election is a stage for ideas. It isn’t. I learned that it’s an arena. The Colosseum wasn’t built for polite exchange, but so everyone could clearly see who stood in the center, and what happened to them there. Modern campaigns don’t involve weapons, but the structure hasn’t changed much. The crowd gathers — usually on the Facebook community pages with a glass of Chablis, these days — to roar, taunt or watch quietly, until they don’t.

You don’t have to look far to see it happen, especially in Lincoln County, Ore., where politics is downright gladiatorial. Here, callous cyber-slapping would bring Spartacus to his knees. Supporters — people who simply put up a sign or make a positive media comment — risk being dragged into the thunder dome. Are you not entertained?

Despite all of this, 12 good citizens have risen to the occasion and fearlessly stepped into the arena. The county is in trouble, and to a person they bring ideas to fix it and would otherwise put their lives on hold for years to do so. They brood over chronic problems like homelessness and potholes and press their intellectual limits for solutions. They run knowing that once they step in, they don’t control how the crowd behaves. We are grateful to those candidates.

So we have a fair question, not just for those in the center, but for everyone watching: What kind of spectator do you choose to be?

The social media bomb-thrower? The one who stays silent when something isn’t right? Or the one who insists, quietly or not, that the contest stay about something that actually matters?

Because the arena isn’t going anywhere. What happens inside it is still up to all of us.