By Bill Rauch
Readers of this column may recall a piece I wrote here several years ago that described the various possible motives of individuals seeking to run for mayor of Beaufort. What are the good reasons to run? And what are the not-so-good reasons?
It went like this. Those who will derive the most satisfaction from serving the people of Beaufort are those who tell the voters what Beaufort needs and how they will go about bringing about that good thing for Beaufort.
If the voters agree, they will vote you in, and they will support you doing that good thing. And you then will have accomplished something that will forever bring you personal satisfaction.
Just below the “doers” on the satisfaction spectrum, I wrote, are the idealogues who have a point of view through which prism they see all matters coming before the government. For example, they might believe all governments always spend the taxpayers’ money wastefully and thus they are forever on a jihad to limit government waste. Whether they succeed or fail, they will know they “fought the good fight,” and that will bring to them some personal satisfaction.
Those who will find the job somewhat less satisfactory are those who possess a specific expertise that they believe the city needs, and they pledge to improve the city by lending to it their special expertise. Their experience may be good. But they will likely also find the job before them frustrating because things probably won’t always go just their way.
Why? Because uniquely in government there are a host of committees through which matters must be passed, and other checks and balances that are unfamiliar and maddingly cumbersome to those who cut their teeth in the private sector. It is for this reason that successful business managers oftentimes find government service frustrating.
It is those motivated in those three ways, I wrote, who will find at least some satisfaction giving of their time to the people.
Then, I wrote, there are three categories of office-seekers who will ultimately wish they had never stepped up. These are the ones who shouldn’t run, but who do. They may proclaim they are motivated by one of the above areas, but those who know them best generally at least suspect the truth. Voters who listen carefully can often ferret out the truth too.
Some will run because they hope holding public office will enrich them. In the case of realtors, it may. But for every dollar they may make leveraging their government office, their reputation will suffer a corresponding withdrawal.
For others, it will be worse. And the dollars they will be forced to spend on lawyers to defend them will likely in the end be a sum greater than that which they sought to gain.
Then there are those who go into government seeking fame. If that is all there is, they will also wish they hadn’t bothered because if they don’t do anything for the people, if they are just “show horses,” the people who are looking to have their lives improved will soon cravenly ask, “Famous for what? Doing nothing!”
And, finally, at the bottom of the spectrum, are the office-seekers who come seeking the love their mothers or fathers neglected for whatever reason to give them.
Yes, there will be plenty of the obsequious who justifiably fear government, and who will tell the lonely one what he/she wants to hear. But not everyone in the constituency will be like that. There will be a few, there are always a few, who will vent upon you their frustrations, who will “tell it like it is.”
And the public official who came to be loved won’t be able to get those ugly words out of his/her mind. They will eclipse the thousand compliments. And they will haunt. The saints themselves don’t receive universal approbation when they are on the job.
Why do I bring all this up now?
Because as you, the voters, are making up your minds about how you will vote in the upcoming local elections, you will each do well for yourselves and for your city to seek to assess the true motives of those who are running.
Do they have a reasonable plan to get something done that needs doing? Do they have special expertise that the city needs? Or are they really just looking to line their pockets, or to squeeze from the constituency the love they never got at home?
Asking these questions, and answering them honestly, will save some candidates from themselves. And doing so will definitely bring into the government the people who can best help move the city forward.
Bill Rauch was the Mayor of Beaufort from 1999 to 2008 and has twice won awards from the S.C. Press Association for his Island News columns. He can be reached at TheRauchReport@gmail.com.
