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Discouraging people from answering the call for public service is wrong
Location: BlogsJim's Blog    
Posted by: Jim Hansen 2/15/2006
Discouraging good people from answering the call for public service is wrong. The people of every state deserve to have competition of ideas expressed in public elections. Unlimited private financing and vicious personal and partisan attacks are symptoms of a disease that discourages healthy competition. We must remedy the disease, not just bemonan the symptoms.
I was very disappointed that a good candidate in Ohio was discouraged by some people in power not to run for the US Senate.
  • It is symptomatic of a broken system that local public servants are actually discouraged from responding to a call to public service.
  • It also is symptomatic of a broken system that the vast majority of states and congressional districts are written off as “safe” from competition.
Both national parties want to focus on a handful of places like Ohio where they go after each other with a vengeance. They then concede most other states and congressional districts. Is that’s what we call public elections now a days?

It should not be that way. The most essential activity to keep a representative democracy in a republic strong is regular and vigorous competition of ideas. Competition is discouraged in today’s elections because it is assumed (1) competition will always consume too much money (raised from private sources in unlimited amounts) and (2) competition will generate personal attacks.

They are interconnected assumptions. Consultants who tell candidates to raise lots of money also tell them the way voters distinguish between candidates is which one they dislike the least (i.e., negative attacks work). This is not the concept of public elections I am teaching my children about, and one I do not want to pass on to them.

Too many Americans have fought and died for the principles of freedom and democracy for us not to devote our energies to fighting the disease that is undermining our public elections, not just bemoan the symptoms.

I believe if enough people are willing to be the change we want to see, the folks in DC who are calling up candidates and telling them not to run will get a busy signal.
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