Most Votes wins the office

This should not have to be said, but I will any way, the reason you now hold elected office is that you received more votes than someone else. Even if you ran unopposed, you still are in office because you received moe votes than someone else. Don’t let elected office go to your head. While you sold how smart you are, or pushed ideas others liked, you hold office because you received “more votes than the other guy”. No mystery here.

The Five Things You Need To Make Absolutely Sure Of, Before Running For Office

5. Have a working relationship and understanding of the United States Constitution.

Every state in the union has a constitution and its basis is the United States Constitution.  All local laws, referred to as ordinances, must conform to both the state constitution and the United States of America constitution.

Working knowledge of the founding document will asst you in making good local ordinances that avoid constitutional pitfalls.  If it conforms to the Federal constitution, then it will conform to the state one and your community will not have to pay to defend your ordnance in court.  Because there will not be a challenge to it so conflict is avoided and the money to defend it can be put to better use.

A good working understanding of the United States Constitution will also keep you grounded with the founding ideas.  Liberty and Freedom are for every citizen, not for everyone.  There is a difference her that is becoming blurred with the distance of time.  The framers of the US Constitution never meant for non-citizens to be covered by the precepts encased within it.  They expected non-citizens to become citizens; this explains we have two sets of laws.  One set for citizens and another for non-citizens.

A copy of your state constitution should be available to you at the local library.  Your Town may have a copy on hand or your state may have a copy that they can sell to you. You really need to read both of these documents because your laws must conform to them.

If the ordinances you create do not conform to both of the above-mentioned documents, then except to spend lost of public money defending you unconstitutional laws.  That is the question, do you create laws that are unconstitutional or do you create laws that conform to them?  There is a greater loss of private liberty and freedom at the local level than at the Federal one.

4. Know what your own ideologies are.

You need to write down what your own important never give an inch ideologies are.  Staying true to your self is not easy.  Voting for a fellow council person’s pet project so you can have them vote on yours will soon lead you away from what you believe.

When you know what you stand for any why you will also avoid fad things because you will have an adequate look at the larger picture and see crackpot ideas when they appear.

To my mind, nothing I s scarier than loosing track of ones core values and while it seems like a simple thing it is more complex than it sounds.  Trading votes via “I’ll vote for yours if you will vote for mine” is, at times, very tempting.  The trade offs, though, can lead you away from what you hold dear and place you into a position you would have never been in, ever.

Keeping a list of ideas, ideals, and values from which you will never compromise will keep you centered and focused.  You can also ask family, friends and staff to assist you with this with the view of keeping you on track.  Staying true to your self, and your values, will give you less to explain to the press, and to others who see counter dictions in your actions on any given governing body.

I became aware, in my first year of elected office that it was entirely possible to become that which I loathed.  I did my best to repeat often the mantra, “if the rich can do this then the poor can do this.”  Staying focused is something that you need to do in order for you not to loose sight of what you are doing in office in the first place.

3. Know what the local campaign laws are and if they are enforced.

In order to run for office you need to know who monitors the election, how to sign up to run for office, if there are filing fees, when signs can go up and when they can be taken down, disclosure statements and with whom filed etc.  The local election board can be a wealth of information.

One might be suppressed how many people run for elected office without knowing the very fundamentals.  You will need to know if there is a requirement, in your state and location, to disclose your finical holdings.  How often these reports need to be filed with the state or local elections board.  Is the voter registration list public information, and if so how can you get a copy of it?

What are the requirements of getting listed on the ballot and does it cost money?  Some locations do not charge an election fee, other do, and in some areas the fee is determined on the salary of the office.  Always nice to know if you need money prior to signing up for office, also nice to know what governs campaign contributions.

How soon can campaign signs be put up, when do they need to be taken down?  Can the stationary of the town, county, state, federal office be used by someone campaigning for office?

You might also inquire on how often the voter registration list is purged to eliminate the dead, people who no longer live in the area, and felons.  Nothing like taking office and then finding out that twenty percent of the voters have been dead for five years.

The most important thing you will need to know is: What constitutes residency?  Every state, county and town has a residency requirement, know what yours is.  Additionally know where the precinct lines are, if your district has them.

2. Be prepared to settle with half of what you really want.

Never become so in love with an idea that there is no place for a compromise, this will make you look unreasonable if not more like a dictator.  Getting half of what you want is really not bad and, in over eight years or more you will look like one of the good “guys”, becoming elected to the office again, Or to a different office, in the future, will be easer.

It is human nature to want it all while selling for nothing less.  The real truth, though, is some give and take needs to happen.  The majority has to limit want it wants and needs, and so to does the minority.  When you are trying to get your ideas passed into being, remember one little thing.  Not everyone will agree, some will be opposed, and you need to have the mental ability to settle for half.

If the Majority gets half of what it wants, and the minority gets half of what it wants, then everyone should be happy.  This is not always the case but consider this.  If you dig in your heals on things you want to have, in an absolute sense, the others on the commission or board you serve on will gang up and vote against you.  Occasionally this is needed, in the case of the Storm Water Ordnance of Town Of Friday Harbor Washington, most defiantly so.  I voted against it because I could not compromise my ideals, ideas, or values.  Charging someone for something, that they cannot control, is what I dug in my heals against.  I lost, plane and simple and I do not regret my vote.

There were plenty of times when I did compromise on issues, but not to the decrement of my core values.  In most cases I settled for half, like in the GMA legislation, and I am happy with what I was able to get fro the Town residents.

1.Most importantly, be absolutely cretin you are the best person for the job.

Sounds like a bit of egotism to say but you need to be convinced that you and you alone are the best person to fill the office.  You do not need to know all of the answers, being able to learn is a good thing, but you need to be convinced that you are the best person to do this.

If you are not absolutely convinced, that you are the best person to do the elected position you are running for, then why do you want the job in the first place?  In order to convince others to vote for you, you need to brag on either what you know or what you want to learn.  Qualifications are nice but deep, down; you really need to know that you are the best the community has to offer.  Much better than all others, way better than the current office holder, whom you are running against.

Remember no one becomes elected because they are smarter than the other person, or wiser, or a better public speaker (just look at George W. Bush).  The reason they are elected is because, they got more votes than whomever that was running for the same office.  This will hold true with you because, in the end, your holding office is dependant on receiving more votes than the other guy

What It Means To Be Elected

With the big general election coming up in a few short months it a good idea, I think, to have a discussion about what it means to be elected.  Some people seem to think that be elected you must be rich, very smart, politically savvy, or some sort of “Brain”.

This is not actually true although one could be very rich, like FDR, or very smart, like Carter, or politically savvy, like Clinton, or some sort of “Brain” like Lincoln.  But all of that will not get you into elected to any office.  In fact in the light of sheer numbers ones smarts, political savvy, or being very wealthy, have very little to do with becoming elected to office.

Your political savvy, smarts, wealth or lack of same will not get you elected or keep you from being elected.  You sell your self on your smarts; the ideas that you believe will make life better for your fellows.  Your political savvy is how you will do business in the give and take of getting the job done, and your wealth may not be an issue.  Although the press will possibly make a fuss over your money, just as they will if you do not have that much of it.

There are two things you need in order to attain elected office:

1. You have to run for the office, shake hands, meet and greet people.
2. You must have more votes than the other guy.

In the final analysis it really does not matter how politically savvy, rich or how great an intellect you are.  If you do not have more votes than your opponent you will not possess the office you seek.  Great wealth means you do not have to ask for political contributions. This also means that you are beholding to no one for political favors. Great intellect means, although it did not seem to help Jimmy Carter much, that you can make very intelligent choices.  Great political savvy can be learned, but it is actually not something that the electorate thinks much about.

So does campaign rhetoric actually matter?  Yes, because if you say you will do something, and then you fail to get it done, keeping the office you have just won will just become harder.  Voters do not keep incumbents in office because they have money, possess political acumen, or are brilliant.  They keep them in office because they do a good job for the votes in their district.  What you say, how you conduct your campaign, the manor you treat others, all are part of selling your self to the voters.

They do care if you enact policy’s that hurt them, cost them their jobs, or prevent them from doing something they need or want to do. So when you are able to bask in the glow of attaining an elected position, remember, it is not your greatness that got you here.  What got you here: are more votes than the other guy.

Bone Up On The History Of The Office.

One of the things that bug people about government is the apparent loss of continuity.  When newly elected people take office the second thing that hey should do is find out what previous councils have promised, and then never followed though with.  Promises made are often promises broken.  The public trust, better understood, as “how the public rusts elected officials”, is a delicate matter.  In order to avoid a disenchanted electorate, keep the promises of the past.

 

It is not at all uncommon, for a town or county council, to promise to do something and then when new members are elected the thing never gets done.  The Federal and various state government bodies are not immune to this behavior either.  This can be a promise to build a new fire hall, parking lot or public rest room.  These examples are not all-inclusive because there many things that elected bodies promise.  Then they forget them, fail to fund them, or use them to mollify the people that placed them in office.  The latter is the most damming because to mean the elected body never intended ot keep its promise in the first place.

 

Promises need to be kept in order for your integrity to be kept intact.  If you promise to increase parking, upgrade the infrastructure, or to do something else, then by all means do so.  Nothing will make things go completely sour for you, in office, than to make a promise that you did not keep.

 

Keep in the back of your mind that, previous to your arrival, the governing body made one or more promises.  You need to know what they are, why they were made, and if the ideas server everybody that you govern.  After you find this out you can then communicate to everyone in your community why you will, or will not, make good on a previous promise.

 

Because people do not think in terms of the individual office, they think in terms of the governing body, if you make good on the promise, you are the knight in shinning armor.  Even if your fail at keeping the promise, made by others; Making an effort to get the thing done will go along way to point out the difference between you, and the other members of the governing body on which you serve.

 

Do the research; keep the promise, even it takes years to do so.  Your community will be grateful and future generations will have something of value.

 

Sherman