Dear President-Elect Trump:
Unbridled self-interest in public office is the most significant obstacle to solving our problems. Senators and representatives who care more about their individual ability to remain in office than working collectively to solve our national problems are, unfortunately, more the norm than the exception.
But, we should cut our elected officials a little slack. Why? Because the vast majority of us would act just as self-serving if we were elected.
It is not politicians who make our system bad. It is our system that produces bad politicians.
Generally speaking, two kinds of people run for public office. First, are those who run for altruistic reasons, and are not yet self-interested. But, by the time they are elected, the process has taken their altruism and selflessness and converted them to someone who will first and foremost seek to remain in office. Second, are those who are already self-interested and who run because of that. They plot, plan, and maneuver to use the political office as a tool for personal advancement. If elected, the process has made them even worse.
It is the inevitable result of combining human nature with our current process for electing leaders. We run to change the system, but the system changes us. I know this process all too well. I ran for Congress in 2008.
Individual changes occur almost imperceptibly—like the aging process. Just as comparing a photo of yourself now with one from ten years ago reveals that you have indeed aged, so too are we able to see how we change as candidates as we go through the process.
I’ll briefly explain my experience.
When I decided to run, the decision humbled me. Chelom and I made the decision together, and we did so for altruistic reasons.
But then began the process of actually running for office. I had to raise money—a lot of it. People don’t give money to candidates when they come and express how overwhelming it is to run, how long the odds are, and that there are lots of men and women who could do as good a job in the office. As a candidate, if you approach funding raising like that, you don’t raise any money.
The only way to raise money is to make yourself a brand that people want to buy into: you have ideas, you can win, and you believe the same way they do. You pump them up to believe that they should give you money.
With some money raised, you start having cottage meetings. The first few cottage meetings are rough. You stand in front of fellow voters and appear like you are—humbled to be running, overwhelmed at the process. It’s tough to shake the feeling that it’s laughable that you’re running for office. People are polite, but they leave entirely uninspired.
Then those who are working to help you get elected sit you down and help you to understand that people don’t want to vote for self-effacing humility. They want to vote for one exuding confidence and who seems to have the answers.
So you re-tool your speech. You come up with a three or five or seven-point plan to fix this or that and make it into a stump speech that can be expanded or contracted to anywhere from sixty seconds to sixty minutes.
Now you’re ready. You’re prepared to raise money, and you’re ready to persuade voters.
Then you go out every day for at least a year and tell the world why you are the answer to the problems and why you are the best person for the job. You, you, you, you. You spend an entire year advancing nothing but your own ability to get to an office. You give your speech over and over and over. Each time, you become a little more refined and more confident. You get so good at advancing yourself both to voters and funders that you inspire them. You persuade them.
Then something disturbing and dangerous happens.
You start to believe your own message. Your speech sounded good the first twenty times you gave it. The next fifty times, you got even more comfortable with it. You know when people are going to laugh in your speech when they applaud, and you tailor your speech to the audience. After a hundred times of giving the speech, you don’t believe you’re the answer to Washington’s problems; you know you’re an answer to them. Because of that, it’s more important that you get to Washington or stay in Washington than anything else.
I didn’t win the election. Gratefully, losing and the rest of what makes up life’s decompression chamber helped me to see how distorted my thinking had become.
But it only gets worse if you win. If you win the election, voters have done you a disservice. They have only solidified in your mind, by electing you, that you are the answer. That becomes the new reality.
And the transformation is complete. The system has sucked you in.
Then you get to Washington and begin becoming accustomed to free flights, free parking, special elevators, private gyms and health clubs, and many other perks that most Americans don’t realize exist for federal officeholders.
Eventually, you need to be there. It’s like a drug. Your ego needs it. Your sense of entitlement needs it. And the only dealer that sells it is the Washington System. It now owns you because you need it more than it needs you.
And the world has stopped being about the folks who you are representing and has begun revolving entirely around you.
It is human nature to become entangled in the system. It happens to nearly everyone. I have seen it over and over and over. I have seen in myself and in many who I have known through the years. Those in office will seldom admit it.
Does this happen to everyone? No. But those are the exceptions.
We can reverse the process, however. We can change the system by changing the way we select our candidates. But to do so, it will require that as Americans, we change ourselves.I’ll get into that tomorrow.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
