There are three kinds of politicians in the world. There are the ones who run for office. There are the ones who seek to influence the ones who run for office. And, there are the ones who campaign for the ones who run for office.
As kind of a subset of that last group, there are the ones who seek to manage the ones who run for office. You know, the political bosses: all the campaign managers, consultants, party heads and power brokers. Yes, the ones who sometimes figure they are smarter than the ones who run for office. They pick up the candidates like pieces of a board game and move them around.
We don't usually refer to all these groups as politicians, of course. But, well, aren't they? A person who seeks to influence a politician is dealing in politics, isn't he? And a campaign manager is about as political as a person can be.
It's some of these ones who seek to influence the ones who run for office and also some of these ones who seek to manage the ones who run for office that I wish to address at this present time. To them, I say, Step up, and let me bend your ear (as in, twist it) so it hurts just a little.
Now, not everyone who seeks to influence the man running for office is a bad person. Sometimes, it's just an honest soul needing an honest change, and appealing to government to make it happen in an honest way.
But sometimes, the influencer is a little more devious, contributing to the campaign of the one running for office, or just giving flat out giving the one running for office a gift of some kind, as if to say, "I've been nice to you, now you be nice to me." Now, not all gift giving is bad, but some do to it expecting a return. There's not a formal agreement between the influencer and the influenceable elected official, but things just kind of come to be understood: "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."
And, as we said, the campaigners, including the power brokers, are also among those who can be spoken of a politicians, as they delve into the political process to get their political candidate elected. Some of them, again, are honest souls, seeking no more than to forward their candidates. Some of them are very good folks, indeed, supporting causes, fighting for right, and seeking to place not themselves, but other people -- good people -- in office. No, I have no quarrel with them.
But, some of them . . .
Well, here we have government and it's suppose to be a serious thing, and all . . . and some of them reduce it to that board game I was talking about. I suppose, I could fire off my anger at the guns for hire, the political bosses who care not what candidate hires them, only that they have the job. But, I give them my pass. They take a job just like the rest of us take jobs, and there is nothing wrong with being employed.
And, I guess I could take out my wrath on a different set of political bosses, the party bosses, since they often support candidates not on virtue of who the candidate is, but simply for no more reason than that that candidate belongs to their party. The party boss -- and party campaigners -- can argue that their party has a set of values, and they are simply seeking to elect people with those values. But, there are those among their party who actually don't hold those values, and those among the other party who do.
But, no, it is not them at which I direct my greater displeasure. It is those who use go about getting someone elected in an ill fashion, those who are devious and mean as they proceed about the whole thing, spreading rumors about their opponents and all. It's this -- the methods they use more than their ill regard for which side they are on -- that puts them on my bad list.
Politics is often a dirty word. So, in deciding who is a "politician," when we are using the word in a negative way, I say we include all those who abuse the system, either by seeking influence in a way it shouldn't be sought, or by seeking the election of friends by methods that oughtn't be employed.
The ones who peddle influence upon the ones who run for office and the ones who peddle the ones who run for office. It is some of them that draw my ire. So, then, of course, I sometimes wish we could somehow kick them out of the whole process. Yes, I do sometimes wish we could kick some of the politicians out of the political process.
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