Life Under Oath

Between packing, moving, summer classes, working, and an inability to overcome the intellectual lethargy that often accompanies the transition into warmer weather, I have regrettably allowed my presidential campaign to sit dormant on the back burner of my life. While 2040 seems far off, I understand the importance of diligence and fortitude, and I want to do my best to develop a flawless record of such traits for a solid thirty years. That said, I’m reviving my efforts and forging on starting today.

As sure as I am that I want to be President, I must admit that, even as recently as a few days ago, I have expressed doubts about my qualifications. I do not doubt my abilities as a leader or decision maker or executive; I feel I understand a great deal about the foundational principles of our country, the functions of national and local economies, basic maintenance of our foreign relations, and plain old human nature. I have developed a steady balance between those issues on which my views are strong and unchanging and those on which I am willing to be more lithe. My reasoning is sound. While I do not claim to know all, I assert that I have established a few simple rules of thumb that may be applied to any controversies I may face in the future, and I am eager to attain ever-progressing knowledge in the next three decades until my skills are most tryingly tested.

It is not my ability to thrive in the office of President that I doubt. But the other day, in discussing my post-graduate future with a few family members, I jested, “I don’t know if I’m dishonest enough to be a politician.”
A joke at the time, my own words later crawled under my skin and made me go clammy.

My honesty could truly be my downfall. I not only have trouble lying, I sometimes have trouble with simple omissions of just parts of the truth. Starting my political involvement on such a seemingly innocent level, speaking of just collegiate organizations, I have already found myself put into situations where dishonesty is made out to be the best policy. A telephone conversation will end with, “make sure you don’t tell anyone else I told you this,” and I suddenly feel dirty. Phrases like, “this stays between us,” whispered in secret after everyone else has left a meeting make me queasy. Schemes of mutiny and two-facedness creep black into my writhing conscience. And we’re just a bunch of students! How am I ever to combat the moral nausea of higher planes?

I pride myself on openness, and I seldom do things that I need to worry about hiding. Sure, I’ve got a blemish or two; it would be a most disappointing waste of the college experience if I didn’t. But there’s nothing devastating, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t fess up to my parents if they asked (just maybe not my grandparents). I lead a fairly pure lifestyle. My closet has neither skeletons nor homosexuality nor prostitutes nor cocaine in it, unlike many a politician’s closet has. And as great as it’ll be to not need to worry about my opponents digging up my dirt and slandering my name, has my life been too pure to now try and dive into the depths of the professional political underbelly?

Are politicians all crooked because that’s what it takes?

We say we want honesty. We’re sick of those darn politicians lying and cheating and stealing, and we’re fed up with all them Washington bureaucrats being downright criminals. We’re fixin’ to elect some good Christian folk next time, hear?

But clearly morality was the least of our priorities circa 2008.

As depressing a statement as it is about our populace, the slimy politicians keep winning because they’re better at duping us. Their substandard bar between right and wrong makes it easier to fund huge campaigns, finagle big endorsements, and essentially buy votes. They’ve got sweaty, hairy lackeys wringing their hands and chuckling maniacally in dark alleys all over the place, willing to bend rules and abuse loopholes at every opportunity. The honest guy finds himself trailing because he’s less cutthroat, less willing to throw person after person under bus after bus. Our system lends itself to handing victory to the shady, and unless this tendency changes, I’m screwed.

The best way to fix this would be if the whole of the voting American people would start doing their own research, getting more involved in their own political communities, and actively support the candidate they find to have the most integrity. This sort of drastic change, however, is about as likely as seeing Janet Reno on the cover of next month’s Playboy.
Sorry for the mental image I just gave you.

If someone as politically tuned-in as I try to be still finds herself distracted from current events for months at a time by sunshine, summertime, and shindigs, the likelihood of the average voter putting forth the effort to delve into a candidate’s past ethics is close to zip. So what’s our biggest hope for helping out the nice, truthful underdog? How could we possibly bleach the filth in Washington? How do we set up a political environment in which I could have any smidgeon of a chance to be President?

I suggest we begin with term limits. We’ve got career politicians who make their secret alliances with special interest groups and serve for decades, morality unchecked. Politicians are supposed to get in, fix what they promised to fix, and get out. Enticed to reign for as long as they want to, ushered in election after election per the ease of incumbency, Congressional seats become more like dynasties. And those in these powerful positions are unlikely to initiate a change in term policy because they alone are the beneficiaries. But there is a movement in the works; it is coming from the grassroots, gaining momentum, and popping up on ballots nationwide. This is our first step toward finally honoring honesty in politics, something we haven’t done once in my memory.

What a sad suggestion it is for our system that I doubted myself because of an overgrown candor. As voters, we should set the ethical standards for our representatives, and enforce the idea that they answer to us for their indiscretions. A starry-eyed kid with Oval Office dreams shouldn’t need to train himself to lie effectively in his concerted efforts upward; instead, we must better our bleak system and make way for a new breed of politician: the kind that has as of yet been unelectable, the sort that doesn’t pretend to be confused by what the meaning of “is” is, the variety whose appointments don’t all have to resign because of uncovered problems with the law, the type that swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and does so even outside his own criminal proceedings! That’s the kind of politician I want to elect, and that’s the kind of politician I’m going to be.

I’m Kelly Cole, and I approve this message.