What is it that happens to a political candidate between the campaign promises and the votes they later cast in office? It’s like magic, like watching two beings inhabiting the same body. And, too often, the longer in office, the more they stray from the campaign promises and the principles that caused us to vote for them to start with.
We can no longer afford to elect merely well-meaning candidates to office. When I was young and naïve, I believed political candidates who said, “The reason I’m running is because I want to serve”, or “I want to give back to my community, or “It’s for the children”. But I’ve learned that such reasons are way down the list of credible reasons to run. God save us from well-intentioned people with an agenda, but few life skills.
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After 30 years of being in the front lines of county political warfare, I conclude that here’s the main reason many people seek office these days: they have a political agenda and they are seeking power to fulfill it. They don’t really want to “serve” (lip service); they want to impose beliefs, and they want to make a career of it.
We continue to see the local rise of the Political Class, the ascent of the professional politician, and the establishment of a permanent bureaucratic class. These individuals want to impose their cultural and social values on us, despite often lacking experience in business and commerce, and frequently having a limited understanding of the real world beyond politics. They are our version of the Beltway Mentality folks, with little managerial or executive skills, only a past involvement in political work or activism.
The Political Class politicians team up with government bureaucrats, journalists, spin doctors, and lobbyists. They help one another, protect each other, and pursue their own interests, often at the expense of the public good.
This entrenched class makes serious decisions with little understanding of the impact they have on people, businesses, or taxpayers. Many elected officials often lack behavioral standards compared to those who think critically. Constantly, they behave in ways that are unacceptable to reasonable people. Violation of norms is usually flagrant, characterized by arrogance, criminal behavior, and breaches of moral or ethical standards. With the rise of these elected officials, we see an accompanying increase in political deception.
Sometimes, candidates destined for the Political Class seek office because it’s the best job they’ve ever had, or possibly ever will have. They believe they can learn to govern on the taxpayer’s dime, with no need for knowledge of economics or budgets. Most have never run anything substantial, either a company or an organization. Many have a history of failing to govern themselves or achieve major success.
Supporting such individuals to run for positions that require expertise in finance, budgeting, personnel management, and supervisory management is an invitation to disaster. It’s like hiring someone with no navigational experience and making him captain of the ship.
There’s another powerful psychological force at work with these people: a desire to acquire power by promises and then to keep power at all costs once they have it. These politicians utilize the deep government treasuries for handouts, rewards, and favors to please their constituents, as a means by which they retain their grasp on power and keep campaign contributions flowing. The rest of us pay the tab for those incumbents to buy their way to victory in the next election. We have allowed this Political Class to breed, to take over government at all levels, and to use it for their purposes.
This group is always secretly reluctant to reduce taxes, their magic candy to gain and keep power. Spending cuts become unthinkable. Tax dollars are the gravy train, assuring future support. And if they get beaten or term-limited out of one office, they simply seek another. Too many of these elected officials are primarily concerned with power — how to acquire it and how to maintain it.
You can see elephants coming, but it’s the mosquitoes that will eat you alive. In this case, the mosquitoes are all those dozens of little decisions made by the Political Class each day to assure their longevity in office and to keep the gravy train on track, always at the taxpayer’s expense.
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