Musings on Republican Politicians

I am a Republican. I have been a district chairman and gone to state conventions. I know Republicans - and am proud to be one. And I know Republican politicians - and I am curious to know the answer to this question:

How can they run for positions in the U.S. Government again and again, and still claim to be a Republican?

I mean, Republicans don't like Big Government - caps intended - right? I agree it is ironic that the party that squashed the states right movement called the Civil War should now be the proponent of local government, but that is the current position. To a modern Republican, Washington is a dirty word.

Yet there are still Republicans who pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their family honor to win elections so they can go and "serve" in that den of bureaucracies. What are they thinking? Any one who truly hated big government would have to be prodded with a stick to go and then would be so eager to leave that they would trample down doors to get out of there.

Yet there are Republicans lining up for the opportunity to sacrifice themselves in the service of big government, and once there, never leave - willingly.

At first, I thought there was some type of infectious cultural disease to be had by those who run for and participate in big government. In my organizational behavior class (OK - it was not on my undergraduate engineering curriculum, but I was curious) we played several games to prove the point that those in power will do whatever it takes to remain in power. But hey, those were games. Ideals would triumph in reality, right?

Unh uh. OK, that explains why once they are in, they want to stay in. They all give the same excuses - "I am doing so much good here. Seniority is rewarded with more powerful positions. If I left office, the Republicans might lose the seat." etc. Hmmm. Those in power want to remain in power. Yep, that nails it.

But what about those aspirants who are toiling to obtain the chance to serve? What was their motivation?

My conclusion was (past tense) that they were naive, liars, or crazy. I had a good friend run for a House seat. He was naive. He really was a good guy. He ran his own plumbing business. He kept two sets of tools just so that he could loan one set to you. And he was fed up with Washington and he was going to go change it. He didn't even get to the primaries. Naivety is not conducive to survival in politics.

So maybe they were liars. You know people who secretly liked Big Government (yes, the caps are intended) and just used the Republican Party as a convenient path to their ambition. And from the behaviors of Republican politicians, I thought this might be true. But when I would meet with the candidates, my sense was that they were sincere. They believed what they were saying about the evils of Big Government, and they were going back there to change it.

So I almost thought they were stupid. However, that is like naive, and stupid and naive people do not get anywhere in politics. I know that a lot of people may argue using the most recent President Bush as an example of how far someone who was stupid and naive could go, but I would suggest that he was neither, and neither were his people. Think that one through a little longer.

So if they weren't naive or liars, that had to leave crazy. As in, able to deny reality when it is staring them in the face. And for the longest time, that concept was the one that appealed the most to me. If you have dabbled in politics at all, then you must have run into people who hold on to beliefs so strongly that fanatical would be a mild description of their behavior. Insanely focused might be better. But those people don't get past the primaries either. So I rationalized to myself that those who actually won were a more sophisticated type of crazy, a kind of schizophrenia that allowed them to believe in competing world views at the same time, as in Big Government is bad, but I can use Big Government for good. You see what I mean? It almost sounds like what they say once they are in office! I thought I had something there!

But darn it. They were just to flexible in their beliefs and practices. Crazy people, by definition, do not cope with all aspects of reality. But Republican Politicians appear to cope fairly well.

Which led me to my current thinking. I wondered why it took so long because it is obvious from their job description - Republican Politicians are politicians who use the Republican Party as their career path. Think about it. Somehow, in my naivety, I still thought that politicians came from all walks of life, from all careers, who as citizens, chose to run for their country and serve their fellow men. You know, the "Minute Man" theory of American Government. But rationality prevailed. These people running for public office did so as a career choice - they had chosen to become politicians. And there were only two employers - Republicans and Democrats. So they chose the one that they thought would best advance their career.

Do they believe the platforms of the parties? I am sure they mostly do. Just like I believe in the business plan of my corporation. And once I compare it to that, you know what I have done. I have changed their beliefs from big B to small b. Just like lawyers can argue either side of a case - but usually tend to be prosecutors or defenders as career choices - so politicians can be on either side of the aisle - but tend to pick one or the other as befitting their style and their career. They don't believe in the platforms the same way that the party faithful and fanatics do. Rather, they believe in them the same way a professional does - they can make them or remake them.

Now there is the true source of craziness. Republicans, who detest Big Government, are voting in people whose career choice is to participate in Big Government. No wonder the government has grown under modern Republican Presidents, from Eisenhower to Bush, in a fashion similar to but with different emphases than the growth under Democratic Presidents. Republican politicians are politicians - people seeking public office as a career.

Amateurs need not apply.