The great thing about America is that anyone can step up and run for high office. This is technically true, at least.
The horrible thing about America is that most sane people wouldn’t dare run for any high office.
I’ve been watching a bit of the ongoing campaign for President. I’ve been disappointed and saddened, for the most part. I think the system ruins those people with good intentions. Further, I think that we’re not seeing the most capable people standing up to run for office.
I know some extremely intelligent and good-hearted people who would make excellent political leaders. Really, I know at least a dozen such people. They wouldn’t dare run for high office, however, and I can’t blame them. In fact, almost all intelligent people are discouraged from running by the system itself. The fact that our political system discourages the best and brightest (at least 99% of them) from running for high political office is arguably the biggest threat to our democracy.
The evidence? Almost everyone in Congress sits on his/her hands, while we attack Iraq. Here’s another: Our congress eternally is afraid to deal with two of the biggest issues facing us: media reform and campaign finance reform. Not to mention health care, social security, meaningful energy policy and dozens of other major issues.
Here is how the system filters out the people it most desperately needs. To be a politician, you need to be willing to do the following:
- You’ll constantly need hit people up for big money, i.e., you’ll need to engage in rampant bribery on an unimaginable scale.
- You’ll need to pretend that you’re not selling out your electorate when you spend all of time taking in all of that campaign money.
- You’ll need to successfully squeeze people and businesses for big money—lots and lots of money. You’ll spend at least have your time in office raising money. If you don’t do that corrupt work well, you’ll soon be out of office.
- You’ll need to be willing to almost always say what you don’t mean.
- By being an politician, you’ll invite vicious attacks on yourself, your spouse, your children and your friends (the kinds of attacks that turn war heroes into villains & people who go AWOL into war heroes).
- You’ll need to give up much of your privacy and you’ll be hounded and attacked whenever you are in public.
- You’ll probably need to live away from your permanent home for extended periods.
- You’ll need to pretend that you are without flaws or a flawed history.
- You’ll need to commit yourself to a frenetic schedule, giving up much of what you enjoy doing.
- Because you probably don’t have professional-honed presentation skills (you aren’t proficient in front of a camera), you will be ridiculed for that reason.
- You’ll clamor for media attention like you were a heroin addict and the media outlets were pushers.
- You’ll need to be willing to publicly reveal your personal religious beliefs (or lack thereof), sexual orientation, good motives and lack of evil motives for everything you do and say. All of these will be pried open for endless doses of accusation and ridicule.
What kind of person is still willing to run for high office, even after considering these hurdles? For the most part, the kind of person who is so dysfunctionally driven that they will never have enough power and notoriety. Sure, sprinkle in a few true-blue heroes, a few people who are honorable, humble, intelligent and not duplicitous, but don’t expect them to step up and serve. Or if they do serve, expect the system to destroy their integrity within a couple of years.
Campaign finance reform [1] is the most important, but not the only, solution to this horrible situation. It might take a second American Revolution to clean up this mess.
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