Candidates Are People, Too

By Scott Cooper, Crook County Judge
Published in the Central Oregonian , September

Sitting where I do, I hear a lot from candidates for elected public office. I hear and read their formal statements at candidate debates and in the newspaper, just like you do. But I also hear from candidates “behind the scenes,” and I occupy a wonderful position from which to watch the evolution of these men and women over the course of a year-long campaign.

Frankly, they’re all a little weird about now.

The closest the majority of the public ever gets to the inner workings of a run for public office is when they cast their ballots at the primary and general elections. Few people get to see the slow, steady process of wearing down that necessarily accompanies any campaign and that leaves candidates and their families emotionally exhausted at the end of the process.

Too, often, we forget that candidates—both those in office and those who aren’t yet in office—still have private lives. They still have to put food on the table for their families. They still have spouses, children and sometimes extended families that require attention that has nothing to do with campaigns. They usually are heavily engaged in community activities or hold other appointed or elected offices, which are an important part of preparing them for the office they now seek. Since those activities and offices often provide the “yardstick” by which their candidacies will be judged, they can’t disengage to focus full time on election campaigns.

As if they didn’t have enough to do, on top of all these activities, they add another layer of activity: The Campaign.

A lot of people see running for public office as just a matter of making an announcement, showing up at a few forums, buying a placement in the voter’s pamphlet (in case you wondered, it’s not free) and depending on the goodwill of one’s supporters to spread the word about why one candidate is better than another.

There’s a lot more to it.

A candidate for public office essentially assumes another full-time job. Think about it. How comfortable you would be if faced with the unpleasant choice of either raking $5,000 out of your own bank account or pestering 200 family, friends and neighbors to give you $25? How would you feel about getting up every Saturday morning knowing that instead of mowing the yard, catching up at the office, checking on Mom or fixing that leaky faucet you were going to spend every weekend for the next three months walking door to door, braving a gauntlet of Rottweilers, German Shepherds and Dobermans, all so you could knock on the door of someone who really doesn’t want to talk to you anyway?

And then there are the sign wars. Do I have enough? Is the print big enough? Do my signs look too flashy for my community? Have I covered all the major intersections? Where does my opponent have? Are they all standing upright? Did the nails hold? Who’s tearing my signs down? Why are people I thought were my friends displaying yard signs for my opponent?

And there’s no break. When you’re running for public office, it’s a 7-day a week, 24-hour a day job. Be careful who you eat lunch with. Someone might get the wrong idea. Don’t get sick. Someone might question the status of your health. Don’t get behind at the office. Someone might suggest you’re not up to the job. Make sure you stay up to date on current events and stay tuned to the community grapevine. You need to know where the next question’s coming from. But keep in mind that every minute you’re reading the paper or talking to the neighbors, you’re not putting up signs, you’re not formulating your campaign speech and you’re neglecting your family, your business affairs and your health.

Oh yeah. The process of asking people for their support is real treat. No wonder most would-be elected officials at this point in a campaign are starting to ask themselves whether it’s really worth it.

The answer, of course, is that it is worth it. Otherwise nobody would do it. Despite the personal stress, despite the relatively low compensation, despite the fact that if you win and if you do your job right, you’re probably going to spend the next four years making choices that will leave some people happy and some people mad, you do it because you know that you will make a difference. You know that you will make your community a better place for your kids or your grandkids. You know that you will protect your family from criminals, or improve the quality of schools, or create better jobs that will benefit everyone or whatever your passion is.

Thank goodness somebody sees it that way. Our political system can’t function if someone doesn’t step up to the plate and put themselves in the hot seat. Yes, taxes are unpopular and tax structure is boring, but essential services have to be paid for, so somebody’s got to do it. Deciding whether to charge a person with a Measure 11 crime or something less can make one very unpopular, but somebody has to protect us. Deciding whether building a youth camp up Mill Creek violates land use laws might make you unpopular in some circles. But would you rather leave the decision up to people in Salem who have never even seen Crook County?

Here’s an idea. The next time you attend a candidate’s forum or a wannabe public official shows up at your door, by all means, ask your question. You need answers to make up your mind about who to vote for. By all means vote for the candidate whose views are closest to yours, not just the one in your party.

But after you ask your question and before you sit down or before you say goodbye to the candidate at your doorstep, take a minute to say, “Thank you. I really appreciate your willingness to put yourself on the line.”

Candidates are people, too. They and their families are not immune to the constant barrage of negatives that newspapers, detractors and gossips delight spreading through the course of any campaign. Too often, elections are not about getting the candidate we support into office but instead become focused on keeping the candidate we don’t support out of office.

The essence of a democracy is the right to choose among competing alternatives. Each candidate who agrees to put himself or herself and his or her family and friends through a campaign with all its accompanying stresses, represents one of those alternatives. If we want to ensure that we continue to have plenty of alternatives from which to choose, a little kindness and understanding and an occasional heartfelt “thank you” will go a long way.