The Foundation for Applied Conservative Leadership offers the best training I have found for those who want to be involved in their one and two day schools.  We highly recommend them to you, and if there is enough interest, we can arrange one of their seminars in your county!

Daniel New, Chairman

Constitution Party of Texas

Do you know what the definition of “experience” is? 

It’s recognizing when you made a mistake -- then trying not to repeat it in the future.

As we enter Election season, I am reminded of four traps I have fallen into in the past.

No one ever warned me about these, I had to figure them out by learning from my mistakes. 

TRAP #1  Believing You Set the Bar High Enough

Most people think it's fair that if I do you a favor, you should do me a favor -- quid pro quo.  You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

In politics, this can come back to bite you.  Maybe you accepted a weakened compromise bill.  You set the bar too low and the politician hopped right over it.

At this point you're stuck.  You see, if you accuse the politician of “supporting a watered-down bill,” he can turn that around by saying, “But, they're the group that told me it was OK!”  And in this case, he’s correct.

You don’t want the reputation of someone who keeps changing the standard.  That isn’t negotiating in good faith and you’ll soon be known as the person or group who can’t honor an agreement.

I was looking to buy a car for my daughter, and the seller agreed on the price, the terms, and the date of the sale.  When the day came to pick up the car, he said he couldn’t sell it because his son’s girlfriend decided she wanted to keep it. 

I could have walked away, but my daughter REALLY wanted that car.  It took the threat of a lawsuit for this guy to honor our agreement. 

The same thing can happen in politics.  The buyer is not wrong just because the terms you originally agreed to no longer work for you.  You blew it, not the buyer -- and they are under no obligation to let you off the hook.

TRAP #2  Believing Politicians

If a politician does the minimum, which is just voting right on a bill, do you thank them publicly?

NO! 

However, thanking politicians publicly is the advice the political class gives you -- and what question should you ask yourself when the political class gives you advice?

[Everyone in Unison] If I believe them, and do what they say, how would it benefit them?

You don’t get rewarded for doing the minimum.  If other people did the very least expected of them, they would be fired for lack of initiative. 

Instead of thanking them, you should be asking for:  less government, more freedom, upholding the Constitution.  Heck, that’s what they are supposed to do.  That’s what they promised they would do when they were running for office. 

Even worse than praising an elected official for doing the minimum is giving praise and support to an untested champion. 

I don’t care if he has been your best political friend since grade school, until he has been tested by fire in office and shown himself a political hero, he is still suspect.

Evans' Law:  “Whenever ‘one of our people’ reaches a position of power where he can do us some good, he ceases to be ‘one of our people.’”

Don’t let your guard down.

TRAP #3  Believing Activists

Mike Rothfeld describes the "blogosphere" as a place where small numbers of activists get together, talk to one another a great deal, then get the mistaken idea that all the noise is a sign that everyone is agreeing with them.

What they don't realize is that all the noise is really just the echo of their own voices.

The din of a few people all talking at once in a cave can sound like a big group.  If they would ever stop and go outside, they would realize there are several hundred million people who could care less about their ideas or their candidate.

And then when they lose, they blame “Diebold” or something else for stealing the election.

Believe it or not, far more people know who Beyoncé is than Ron or even Rand Paul.  (Yes, half the population is below-average.  Do the math.)

Whose fault is this?

No one's.  It is just the reality of the situation. 

People Are Not Looking

When deciding who to vote for, people are not going to Google “Who is the most principled politician?”  It’s not going to happen.

Do you know how much money it takes to create a national brand?  How much time it takes to become an “overnight” sensation?  How much promotion it takes to get discovered?  And most really talented people are never “discovered.” 

So is it all luck?  Is it just random?

There is an element of good fortune and God’s Providence in all this.  As one of my political mentors said, “Pray as if it all depends on God, work like it all depends on you.”

TRAP #4  Believing Voters

You have to remember that people will promise to vote for your candidate, but many will forget.  On Election Day you'll hear any number of excuses:  The kids got sick. The in-laws showed up.  We lost/won the lottery. I was bitten by a dog.

Life happened -- and there were other things that were more important to them than your candidate.

So what do you do?  The answer is to bug them so much that it is easier to vote for your candidate than to deal with you bugging them all the time.

Jesus told a story of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8).  Even though the person she was bugging didn’t care about what was right, he did the right thing because this lady was in his face every day.  You have to be the same way.

We All Have Good Intentions

I am as guilty as anyone.  We want to do the right thing, but we forget.  We are like squirrels. A brighter, shinier object comes into our field of vision and distracts us from what we are supposed to be doing.

The trap is forgetting that other people are just as fallible as you are. 

And we are getting closer to Election Day.  Get back to work!

Sincerely,

Kirk Shelley
Senior Consultant, Campaign for Liberty

P.S.  Will Rogers said there are three kinds of people.  Those who learn from watching others, those who learn from books, and then there are those poor souls who have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

Don’t be like those poor souls; learn from my experience, so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.