Down-Ballot Blues

My Life’s Editor and I went to a political fundraiser last week. We were invited to fork over money to hear the candidate. There were three levels of donation, the highest producing the warmest glow inside the donor. This was not our first rodeo. No one would bar us from the Grand Central Brewhouse’s private event room because we had not hit the max dollar mark. We would still get a name tag, get a free glass of wine and nibble on crackers and little blocks of cheese impaled with toothpicks. We would schmooze and hear the candidate declaim.

It would be easy to write a check and not show up. That would be like writing a check to Doctors Without Borders, sealing up the envelope, saying, “Well, that’s that,” and feeling proud of yourself. By attending, we honored both the candidate and our friend who hosted the affair. We also added to the body count. It would have been embarrassing if only the host, the candidate’s manager, the candidate and three uninvited stragglers from the downstairs bar had turned up. Body count in public events is important to politicians. Mr. Trump claimed his 2017 inaugural crowd at the Mall put Mr. Obama’s 2009 Mall crowd to shame. A photo comparison revealed he needed a reality check.

At the bar, I ordered a glass of Chardonnay for me and a tonic and ice with a slice for herself. Since the cost of the Chard and the tonic were coming out of somebody else’s pocket, I popped a fiver into the tip jar and got a nice smile from the bartendress. We turned and chatted with friends. Our host and a local politico, were cheerleaders for the main event. They gave it up for Sean Shaw, candidate for county commissioner in Hillsborough County, the county next to ours. Sean was enthusiastic and well-spoken. A good guy.

Where do folks like Sean get the energy to campaign? In the months leading up to the general election, they are political mendicants, wandering from event to event, cup in hand. I picture Bill Murray, the weatherman in Groundhog Day, waking every morning ad infinitum to cover Punxsutawney Phil’s arrival.  I picture a band performing on the road, same shtick every night, until the night the front man yells, “How’re we doin’ Harrisburg?!!,” when they had left Harrisburg the day before and are actually in Schenectady.

Why do they run for office? Most of us would run from office, like when your name is advanced for the condo board or the church vestry. Elective offices at the local or state level are “down-ballot” in a Presidential year, considered small potatoes. Lead news items focus on the big dogs contending at the head of the ballot. Campaigning at the city council, county commissioner, and state representative level is granular and grueling, door-to-door. Once a candidate qualifies for the primary and, if successful, the general election, she steps on a political version of the people mover belt at Tampa airport. There is no getting off.

The urge to run for office likely came from her selection to be “Student of the Month” at Martha Stewart Elementary. Her mom got a sticker for the car bumper. Then she was elected student council president in middle school, running on a plank to get Skittles in the vending machines. As she gave her acceptance speech, she looked over the student body and thought, “Cool, I can do this. Just give them what they want.” My beloved ran for office when she was in college. She had the searing experience of blanking out when she got to the podium to explain to the student assembly why they should vote for her. She returned to her seat, crushed. Since that time, she has forgotten nothing. Unfortunately for me.

We have held “meet-and-greet”s for those running for elective office. We have not had the clout to ask for donations as a prerequisite for attending. Most folks come in anticipation of herself’s homemade munchies. Following our philosophical inclinations, we have primarily hosted donkey party candidates. Our very first meet-and-greet as hosts was the exception, and was exceptional, as time proved.

I interviewed an 18-year-old applicant for my alma mater. I was not snowed, reported as much to the headwaters in New Haven. They ignored my insightful report and twenty years later, a Yale graduate and a lawyer, he was a Republican running for the Florida House of Representatives. We hosted him. He gave a sterling speech to our guests from the stairs in the living room of the Craig manse. Though not elected, he had shown prowess as a political money-raiser. He later raised money for himself in an inappropriate manner as a trust officer and went to the hoosgow for a period. Other candidates have made speeches in the Craig living room after that and have proven to be solid citizens, some elected, some not elected. Sic transit gloria.

The young interviewee was not my only humbled Yalie politician. While living in Chicago in the early 70s, I loaned $500 to an inner-city youngster who had dropped out of Yale. He said he needed the money to cover his mom’s bills. He graduated from the University of Illinois, picked up an MPA from Harvard and became a Rhodes scholar. Chicago citizens elected him to the US House of Representatives. Alas, he misbehaved with a campaign worker and, like Icarus, fell from the sky. I never got my $500 back.

People run for office to get a regular paycheck. People run for office to change things, having watched “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and seen Jimmy Stewart in the mirror in the morning. For those who stay the course, it is a career. Tom Craddick, a Republican, is the longest serving member of the Texas House of Representatives in history, getting on the gravy train at the age of 25 in 1968. His comment in 2018: “Some people play golf. I’m in the legislature.”

Voters re-elect members of Congress at the rate of 98%. Once elected, a politician can have a sinecure if she takes care of business. The scuffling required to grab an open seat or bump off an incumbent is worth it. But hold the presses! The current approval rate of congress by Americans is 12%. Why do we re-elect people whom we regard, as a class, as distasteful as hairs in our soup bowl? We think our guy, the one we just re-elected, is OK, one of the 12%. The guy representing a county across the state, just re-elected, is likely a scoundrel – except to his people.

Pogo had it right:

 “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Images: Wiki Commons; Lorie Shaull, St. Paul, Wiki Commons