Pacific Daily News

I ran for governor twice and congressional delegate five times. When asked about running for political office, I sometimes tell people that I am a recovering politician. It is a status that I am trying to avoid, but like substance abuse, one drink or one hit (some encouragement or compliment) and I could fall right back into it and become a candidate for public office again.

It is an ego trip to see your name and picture on the side of the road. The only competitors for that space are realtors and Mt. Carmel School.

It is a heady feeling to hear people discuss your ideas and plans. Unfortunately, most of that discussion goes south pretty quick in the heat of competition and you become the object of derision rather than praise. If you are friendly, it is because you are a politician trying to get votes. If you walk past people without acknowledging them, you are an arrogant politician who just lost votes. You live in an exaggerated world in which praise and blame ebbs and flows like the changing of the tides. But it happens more than twice a day in politics.

We have a problem with politicians. Almost every day, we take out our frustrations in public life by talking about their shortcomings. If we are experiencing personal frustrations, we go home and kick the dog. When we have a bad public policy day, we kick the politicians. They are responsible for pot holes, long lines at government offices and mismanagement of funds. Talk shows and editorials usually have villains and, almost all of the time, they are politicians.

Politicians are an amorphous group of elected officials whom we all generally agree deserve our disdain and even disrespect. It seems like there is general agreement with the Urban Dictionary definition of politician as a person who has perfected the art of lying. They also tell us that politics comes from poly (meaning many) and ticks (meaning blood-sucking parasites).

The term politician itself is so negative that politicians resist being called politicians. They refer to themselves as public servants or elected officials. When asked to explain dishonest statements or insincere relationships, even politicians will say “it is just politics.” When we run into someone who is polished at currying favor with others, we say that person is a “real politician.”

We say we want honest politicians, but what we really want are politicians who make us feel good. We will vote for politicians who promise us money over those who promise us responsibility. We will vote for politicians who can barbecue over those who can explain public debt.

Maybe we don’t really want honesty. In the current Trump-influenced political discourse, we now have alternate facts. Perhaps we are living in a more honest political world in which we acknowledge that truth is irrelevant. Feelings are all that matter.

We also use “career politician” as a derisive term. Nobody wants to be called a career politician, but our public buildings and facilities are named after career politicians who were in office for 20 or 30 years. Based on my personal experience with hundreds of politicians around the world, I found that the vast majority wanted to do a good job and were sincere in their desire to be of public service. I found a few who were cynical liars and violated the public trust.

But these people are also present in universities, the clergy, businesses, medical offices and the military. They are present wherever there are people. They could be in higher numbers in the people’s business, which is what politics is all about.

Robert Underwood is president of the University of Guam and Guam’s former delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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