Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Politicians

Most people, including future politicians, start out in life with a simple desire to do their own thing without harming anyone. If you become successful at doing your own thing through no fault of your own the next step is to help the less fortunate realize their own dreams. Now the fun starts. Where can you do the most good? Here you are with high ideals and a genuine belief that you can improve the world. If you don’t have any professional "do gooder" skills the easiest thing is to become a politician. Your first chore is to get elected yet how are you going to do it without compromising your ideals? You have to appeal to each and every voter in order to reach a critical mass yet every person is uniquely different. If you start out tailoring your message to the needs of each and every individual the media say you are suffering from "mixed message syndrome". You then realize that the "KISS" principle is really necessary but what are the "flavors" that will appeal to most voters? Usually it is lower taxes and increased benefits which are economically at opposite ends of the old teeter totter. The result? Goodbye ideals and dreams. Hello cynicism.

2 comments:

Smart-Alecky said...

True very true. But as said "you cannot clean the drain unless you get into it." So if anyone does not dare dive into politics to clean it, (s)he has no right to crib abt it. Me included. My thoghts.
BTW was looking arnd for blogs, stumbled on yours.

Janice Phelps Williams said...

This reminds me of a man I knew about 25 years ago. He was a husband, father, and a senator. He's the only politician I have known personally. Up for re-election, many of us gathered at his dining room table folding flyers and inserting them in envelopes to mail. That's what it came down to: someone's dad, mailing out flyers so he could keep his job for a few more years.