Personal cost drives away talented leaders
In the spring of 2011, then Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana announced he would not seek the Republican presidential nomination, ending months of excitement among conservatives around his possible run. His family’s reservations about the spotlight far outweighed any political pressure he may have been feeling, and he gracefully bowed out. As former senior political adviser to President Reagan and head of President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, Daniels was a rock star in the conservative movement. But the Daniels family had a complicated past. He and his wife had married, divorced and eventually remarried each other.
Most people would have called that a happy ending. But on social media, you can imagine, that story would have been told differently.
Fast-forward seven years. Daniels says if he’d had to make that choice today, he would have reached his conclusion significantly faster. “At the time, it was a decision that took months for me to consider, one I put great thought into with my family. Today, it would take me less than 10 minutes to decide not to run,” he said.
Daniels’ decision was a high-profile example of when good men and women decide not to run for office not because they aren’t capable or they lack leadership qualities but because of the personal cost to their lives, reputations and family’s stability.
Yesterday’s goofy yearbook, Facebook posts or ironic tweets are now distorted into falsehoods by thousands of anonymous Twitter trolls. These items eventually make their way into news stories that can destroy not just candidates’ political careers but also their lives.
One complaint often heard on the campaign trail in 2016 was this: Of all the inspiring, hardworking, bright men and women in this country, how did it come down to a choice between two people who were not exactly paragons of virtue?
The answer then was that people had such a low viewpoint of government it was hard to get good people to be willing to be involved. In retrospect, two years ago may seem like a kinder, gentler time. Why would any good person jump in today, given that character assassination comes first and facts later?
As a country, we are only as good as the men and women who choose to run and serve. While we have always enjoyed an abundance of men and women who answered the call of service and ran for office — most of them for the greater good of their community, some for the greater good of themselves — we’ve mostly figured out in short order whether we’ve picked the one called to serve or the one who is self-serving.
But in this age of vicious politics, good people will step back and refuse to upend their personal lives because the other side is politically set on winning at any cost.
“That you will be personally attacked, marginalized, humiliated and physically threatened is terrifying,” said Republican strategist Bruce Haynes, vice chairman of public affairs for Sard Verbinnen & Co. “I fear we have reached the point where many smart, reasonable people with the desire to serve instead choose to stay outside the system because they don’t want to expose themselves and their families to the reputational risk of participating in elective or appointed politics.”
The result is what businessmen describe as a crisis of talent acquisition.
“Through our collective words and actions,” Haynes said, “we have hung a sign on the American political system that says: ‘Welcome to crazy town, reasonable people need not apply.’”
Politics doesn’t have to be all puppies and flowers, but in a civil society, we should argue ideas instead of assassinating character. It creates a chilling effect on political participation at all levels.
“If good people are not motivated to run, then the public is turned off by their choices, and politics becomes an exercise in supporting the lesser of two evils, voting against the enemy or, worst of all, not voting at all,” Haynes said.
We get the social media we deserve. We get the elections we deserve. And if we continue to let the former run the latter, we will get the candidates we deserve — and they won’t be the good ones.