The Fear of Politics: Shooting of Rep. Giffords May Bring Dearth of Good Candidates

America seems to be handing itself plenty of challenging lessons of late that may be too hard to take for some and easier to digest or put in perspective for others. By all accounts, the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords this month in Arizona and the death of innocent bystanders by a deranged gunman (the smirking one who shall not be named by this media writer) pierced through the heart of those tired of political bile. And yet others seemed a little hardened to the violence based on the routine nature of shootings in America.

Some of those on both ends of that spectrum were likely ones who have had or still have aspirations of getting into politics to help find inroads into making these incessant shootings a thing of the past.

But that's the disadvantage of not being able to read every mind in our country, or get an accurate reading of what people are thinking collectively. Likely, if we had some sort of magical public opinion device that looked inward instead of outward, we might see a surprising (or maybe unsurprising) message imprinted on many of those aspiring political candidates' minds:

"My political career is on the backburner pending further review."

Or, in the minds of those more blunt: "Politics can take itself straight to hell! It's already there anyway."

The unfortunate aspect of those mind melds is that many of them could be negativity spouting from a truly brilliant political mind. I don't mean one who's merely a celebrity and using media to find inroads into favorability with the American consciousness. My definition is one of those who studied intensely on the political process at a prestigious university and already knowing how to execute a plan to truly get things done.

While arguable, most of the political candidates today that get national exposure don't have the kind of brilliance that we should be getting. Erase a true political brilliance and you can also see evidence that nearly every candidate of recent memory running for Congress or for President leans to a far end of their respective political line.

That's why it's such a tragedy that Rep. Giffords may never be able to practice politics again--despite a miraculous recovery at the writing of this article. She was one of the few centrists in Congress who saw both sides of the political coin and knew how make it into an intelligent moderate position. She would have eventually made a good alternate to Hillary Clinton as the first potential female U.S. President.

Fate always steps in, though, and sometimes to display a painful irony.

Reality, however, has shown that politics soured many a potentially excellent political candidate years ago before the insanity of politicians getting shot at a political rally was even considered a remote possibility.
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Names of those who could have been President and didn't decide to run are now steeped in a giant paper pile unfiled or long forgotten. Colin Powell, for one, was a moderate who could have been the first African-American President before George W. Bush created a Bush dynasty in the White House. By that time, however, the process of running for President had already turned into a giant fish bowl instigated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal with President Clinton.

You also have the usual litany of celebrities who could have run and, for the most part, thankfully didn't. Then there's Al Gore who could have easily run for President again and actually achieve it that time. Only the increasing shaky political climate (and yes, that other climate Al talks about), plus persuasion to make millions of dollars from a Nobel Prize win took the Presidency out of his mind. It appears Hillary Clinton won't run for any more political office for the same reasons.

And then you have the most important of all: Many of the unknowns out there who are undoubtedly smarter than any of the candidates mentioned above or combined. These are the ones who grew up thinking they could make a bigger difference than their predecessors. Then, one by one, they decided to throw it away when it became clear in the last decade that the liabilities of just getting there outweighed the benefits.

It's now in comparison to high school graduates dreading military recruiters during a time of war.

This leaves a mystery: Why do the least appealing candidates have the best armor in putting up with the maddening complexities of politics? The answer may be that not having to fight off the more intellectually superior candidates removes half of the burden.

Yet even the least appealing candidates may eventually give way to the lowest common denominator candidates if fear ensues of being a recipient of hate or even death for promoting a personal ideology. Despite likely better security features for politicians after the horrific Tucson, Arizona shooting, it's been written in the minds of a new generation that public service isn't suitable for them and better off in the hands of someone else.

This creates the illusion in America that there actually aren't any good political candidates out there. While doing charitable work without rewards seems to be at an all-time high, politics now needs a true incentive to attract these more politically-balanced and educationally-enriched individuals out of their hiding corners. And the one Pavlovian response America has always nurtured is the idea of doing something challenging for...well, more money.

Even though upping the pay of government officials is close to anathema today with our national deficit, raising the pay of at least the Presidency might attract better candidates to the job. The world's toughest job should be allowed to be paid in the millions rather than six figures. It's a workable concept in the world of Hollywood where making millions of dollars outweighs the reality of being hounded by paparazzi everywhere you go for the rest of your life.

If that doesn't gel with the American mindset, then the strongest incentive is an attempt to create a truce among politicians and media. Hollywood and the paparazzi tried that once, yet failed. Fellow politicians and responsible media, however, now have tragedy to back up any argument to create a precedent.

Creating an assured atmosphere where politicians can delineate a time for politics and a time for privacy would create a path of making running for political office attractive again. But in order to make such a truce workable, it needs to be done in the open and in front of worldwide media to make each side accountable for any lapsing of sins.

Of course, barring the logic of these actions, someone in the vein of Barack Obama might run for office and set a new incentive on how to deal with the insanity. President Obama has to some extent, despite few having his uncanny, laid-back prowess on dealing with it all.

If China continues to dominate America, Zen philosophy may have to be their inheritance to politicians as a final resort training ground. Right now, any aspiring politician needs to make overwhelming problems, lack of security and privacy a whole lot smaller in the conscious mind before sitting down to go to work.

Additional Reading:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2927304/devolution_of_the_intellectual_president.html?cat=75