I am going to be profoundly contrarian here. It is very, very easy to say “aww hell all politicians are crooks!” or “dammit I hate this candidate, but I hate their opponent more!” or “politics is dirty!” or “the system is rigged!” or whatever else. Cynicism is cheap. We spend much of our time focused, laser-like, on the flaws and controversies of everyone who enters the public sphere. It’s natural, and it’s even constructive.
So allow me a counterpoint.
You can say what you want about any one of these men - notice I will not say a word on the politics of any of them nor will I even discuss their time as president - but let me at least lay it out for you.
Our current president is one of the most gifted orators of the last half century, with a profoundly inspiring background whose very existence as a public figure gives hope to millions. He is an extremely intelligent and profoundly decent man, who rocketed to political success after a background in community organizing, law, and academia and on the basis of an expressed vision that what unites us is stronger than what divides us.
This man [George W. Bush] was the extremely popular two-term governor of one of the nation’s most populous states - when he was reelected in 1998 it was with the highest vote total of any governor in Texas history. He had a knack with connecting with people in a way that many politicians didn’t - he never, in the Southern way of speaking, “put on airs.” Being the son of a President and the brother of a very popular governor of another populous state, he came from a pedigree few could match. When he won in 2000, it was against a primary field that was one of the most impressive ever. And he won in large measure because he espoused a vision of the GOP that was compassionate and big tent.
This man [Bill Clinton] could make a reasonable claim to being among the most intelligent individuals of the late 20th century. A Rhodes Scholar, Oxford educated, tremendously bright lawyer, he chose to enter public service, beginning as Attorney General and then as Governor of Arkansas - he was 32 when he was first elected Governor, the youngest in the country by far and among the youngest to ever hold the office of Governor of any state. When he was elected again in 1982 he then served in the office for ten years straight before bursting onto the national scene.
Arguably one of the most accomplished Americans of his generation - and it was a doozy - this man [George H.W. Bush] joined the Navy on his 18th birthday, following Pearl Harbor, became an aviator (quite literally the youngest aviator in the entire United States Navy at the time), left the service at the end of the war, breezed through Yale in two and a half years, founded an oil company, and was a millionaire by the age of 40. He chose to become a public servant then, was elected to the United States House of Representatives, became the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, then a special envoy to China at a critical time, then became the director of the CIA. Following that he became a two-term Vice President, before being elected President himself.
Raised poor, this man [Ronald Reagan] started out as a radio announcer, then as an actor. While his acting career was not that noteworthy, he was held in such high esteem by his peers that he was chosen to lead the Screen Actors Guild as president, twice elected during the 50s when that was arguably one of the most important unions in America. Like Obama, his “coming out” was as a convention speaker, where he showed an uncanny vision for an optimistic Republicanism. He was then elected Governor of the most populous state in the union, and won reelection easily. He ran unsuccessfully for president twice, gaining tremendous respect and national exposure in the process, before finally winning the nomination and then the office. He was subsequently reelected by the largest electoral college margin in American history.
[and so on..]
Beyond that, I think there is something we don’t often realize.
Public service is a very crappy way to become rich or famous.
It’s
true! If you are an extremely smart individual, and your goal is
fortune - you do not give up your career on Wall Street or in Silicon
Valley to go run for the open seat in AZ-2. Typically, the people who
get elected to state office are people who have been paying their dues
for years, organizing voters, signing people up with clipboards,
schmoozing donors, and on and on. You wind up spending all of your 20s
and most of your 30s doing mundane work for no pay. Your peers,
typically, are busy making partner or getting VC funding while you’re
worrying about yard signs. It is a lousy way to get rich.
If
you are an extremely vain individual, and your goal is popularity or
power - public service is likewise an awful avenue. You spend most of
your life in public service eating shit. You have to sit there and
listen to constituents tell you every crazy reason in the book why
you’re a Jew Illuminati and you just smile and nod. Before you even
sniff ballot access as a major party candidate, you have to pay your
dues shadowing small-ball idiots who nevertheless you have to treat as
the next JFK. And, most people who run for office….well, lose.
They don’t tell you that part. Hell, even in my little above exercise,
nearly all of those guys got stomped at one point of another. And most
people don’t even get that far - they die on the vine trying to build
name ID for a local congressional race in New Hampshire. It is a lousy way to get famous.
And this is all way before we’re talking a presidential run.
The truth is: a person who has dedicated their life to public service, has typically done so because they believe in something.
And,
more to the point, the very fact that they are running for office
usually means they are sacrificing something to try to make a
difference. That they have paid dues, come through the ranks, offered
something of themselves.
