This will be sort of a collection of random thoughts as I prepare for the next big thing blog-wise: interviewing a candidate later this afternoon.
People are trying to tell us that being part of the status quo is poison this election cycle. To an extent, I think they’re right in that perhaps being a 20 year incumbent isn’t all that cool anymore (although, with rare exceptions, it never really was.)
It seems to me that part of the problem is getting caught up in the “we’ve always done it this way” syndrome and sometimes it takes an outsider to assess the problem and come up with a more creative solution. As an example, what if someone came into a position of power not just mouthing the ideas of “hope” and “change” but actually having a plan to create it? I don’t mean just stomping the accelerator to the floor on the direction we’ve been going for decades as a nation but actually turning the wheel and traveling down the road in the opposite direction.
“But radical change like that would take people out of their comfort zone!” the critics would say, and that would be correct. Yet comfort is a relative thing, and one man’s desired style of living certainly may not reflect their neighbor’s or their friend’s. Taking off the brain’s cruise control and instead inspiring critical thinking may be jarring at first, but it can eventually be quite liberating.
A true leader may not always have the majority behind him to start; in fact, to me the definition of a leader is someone who takes things in a direction not heretofore taken and well before the bandwagon even pulls up. Eventually the people come on board, but not until after the leader takes his or her slings and arrows along the way.
One political race which comes to mind as I write this is the race for our County Executive. Four years ago we had a choice between two people who seemed to represent where we’d always been and who would take things in the same direction. Maybe that was the way to inaugurate a new office, an office which only existed after contentious debate and a vote of the people – oddly enough, here was something of a new direction where some showed leadership in working to adopt. To many, making waves with the new office was quite enough so we eventually elected a career bureaucrat to take the reins. In essence, he was elected to do a job he had previously been appointed to do for a smaller subdivision.
Now we have another election, one which pits the old guard against someone with at least some ideas which would radically change the county. These ideas, he argues, are what he puts forth as a leader – one who will attempt to sell these items on their merits to a populace which may not be so much comfortable with the way things are as they are resigned to the top-down system as it is. Even I don’t agree with all of them but have to concede that the arguments have some merit.
The candidates who tend to appeal to me mix a willingness to shake things up, a history of involvement in local affairs, and a manner of communication which brings their philosophy to life and encourages the listener to come to the conclusion that indeed this path is the correct one. (Of course, principles matter. Barack Obama would fit into the first two categories but can’t convince me his conclusions are correct. For the most part, Ronald Reagan did all three.)
There’s no doubt I have a vision of government and its role which is somewhat different than the average voter’s. Whether that’s because I’m not part of the mainstream or people simply go along to get along is a question best answered elsewhere, but the fact remains that I’m willing to touch those third rails in my writing and attempt to convince people they should call for those sacred cows to be slaughtered. If we had more people in politics who understood what the role of the government truly should be, it’s my contention that we would be even more prosperous and free to live as we wish to.
Count me as one of those who doesn’t like the chains laying upon me.
