My friend Laura recently wrote, “It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”
Raise your hand if you agree. Fair enough — you’re being realistic. But if we were in a large room full of common people representing the population of the world, every hand would be raised. Which means two things:
- Somehow common culture has developed a stereotype that only the dishonest are voteable.
- Common culture prefers candidates with common sense, common honesty and common decency.
The question is, when the common people turn out to vote in the next election, will there be any sensible candidates to vote for?
We need thousands of candidates worldwide.
In each country of the democratic world there are thousands of local offices. And those local offices possess more aggregate power than the oh-so-coveted federal positions.
The United States, for example, will be truly carbon neutral only when each of its states and protectorships are carbon neutral. The states, only when the counties are. And the counties will be carbon neutral only when the cites are and the cities must begin by reforming the districts. So, the US will be carbon neutral when all its districts are.
While federal legislation wanders the halls of congress, each of the levels of local government can be instituting specific change.
And specific change will only occur if the administrators of local government act.
We, the pragmatic generation, need to take action.
- We need to refocus the public on the effect local administrators have on the common good.
- We need to take responsibility and run for those local offices, to be the administrators enacting positive change.
The common people will vote for the common people — the decent, honest and pragmatic people. People will vote for us.
Cross-posted at Voteable.
I’m so glad to see this topic come up. I believe it contains a dash of naive optimism, as the political process IS stacked against the honest, common sense candidate. But I think this is our only hope. In the documentary I’m producing, Hooked on Growth, I focus quite a bit on what can be done (and is most often not) at the community level to address two big picture policy challenges that most would assume are too national, global or systemic to fix. In my view, one of the best ways to start changing the system is to start changing all its small parts. Individual action is great. National policy has to change. But we cannot have a sustainable world in which most communities have unsustainable policy goals.
In fact, not to toot my own horn, but I did run for city council in my home town on a true sustainability platform. My city has been controlled by ultra-conservatives far too long, and may be the last to get off coal, but I felt it was important to try – and to see if the voters were ready for the message that the current system isn’t working, and that there is a much more hopeful system. (At all levels our obsession with economic growth is the biggest obstacle to reducing carbon emissions.) I got 43% of the vote against an incumbent who had 3X as much money to spend. That gives me hope.
I have a video retrospective of the campaign posted at http://www.growthbusters.com/2009/04/growth-no-longer-creates-community-prosperity/ . You might find the messaging of interest.
Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
Check out what we’re doing here in Utah: http://utcitizenscandidate.org/
It’s a truly grassroots initiative to take out Blue Dog Jim Matheson. This is a unique citizen-led effort that turns around the power structure of our political system.
Dave: that’s a sweet story. Even trying and not winning is important because it shapes the experience the knowledge of what’s possible. If you had known you were that close (43%), would you have been able to kick it up a notch? I don’t mean that in any demeaning way, but more for an educational moment for any young candidates out there.
Morgan,
I think I had it kicked up as much as I physically could. But I believe I might have won had I begun planning my campaign 6 months earlier than I did. When you’re up against money, you need to be smarter and have more volunteer power. And that takes time to organize. If I were to run again, I would begin a year before the election.
Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
Let’s not also forget that most people like their individual congressman even if they despise Congress. If your Congressman says “I voted to give the other district money instead of ours because it makes common sense and is right,” they will not last long in office. Often paying the mortgage shifts one’s common sense.