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An Insurgency, Not a Campaign

-- written January 9, 2011

I began this process as an insurgency.  Our system in Washington is broken.  The people who make decisions for us and who stand for election in this country might as well be from somewhere else: another country, even another planet.  They say one thing to get elected and do another once they're in office.  Normal folks don't do that.  The people who vote for these folks don't act that way in their everyday lives, and people shouldn't act that way. 

Thus, the United States of America is occupied by an alien power: one that doesn't represent the will or the interests of regular people like us.  An insurgency is a rebellion of the native population against a foreign occupying power in order to restore rule to the natives.  The purpose of my candidacy is to overthrow the powers that occupy this country: it is an insurgency, not a campaign. 

Thanks to God and an amends to myself:

I got caught up in turning in paperwork to the federal government and letting a good friend who is much more interested in and knowledgeable about politics than I am help me out, as a campaign manager.  I still write my own “common sense” entries, and every one of them reflects what I believe, but I accidentally let my insurgency turn into a campaign.  

I owe God some gratitude for showing me my mistake, like God always does for us if we listen.  In this case God woke me up by slapping me in the face with a reminder that most things are outside of my control (namely, by showing me that whether or not the place I live stays in the district I am running in is outside of my control), and God reminded me of this at the same time that I was finishing Lawrence Lessig's book Republic, Lost:

“Thank you, God, for reminding me that there is plenty in this world that is more important than I am, including You.”

I also owe myself an amends, and this amends begins with an apology:

“Sorry, Jack.  I forgot why I was doing this.”

But the apology is just the beginning of the amends.  An amends is more than an apology.  I have to right the wrong I've done by not doing it any more and by making up for it.  So, let's be clear: 

While I will appear as an Independent on the ballot in Tennessee's 7th district in November 2012, and while I will collect and spend money in order to do well, maybe even win, that election, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is not (nor will I let it become) my number one priority.  This is an insurgency, not a campaign.

What difference does it make what you call your candidacy?

I think I can best explain the difference between an insurgency and a campaign with a parable. 

Campaign Land

There's a bright young man named James.  James honestly wants to do what's best for his friends and neighbors.  He does the best he can in his personal life, but he one day realizes that if he runs for office he can do even more good for more people.  So James starts to run a campaign.  He hires a campaign manager (actually, he finds a very bright one willing to help for free). 

The manager knows James's mind on most of the major issues, and he goes out and finds groups who feel the same about those issues and who have money to spend on political campaigns.  These folks happily contribute.  James doesn't change what he has to say or what he believes in order to please these donors, but let's say he changes the order in which he presents his views and the emphasis he places on them.

While James is running, a bill comes up that his opponent is sponsoring, and at the encouragement of his manager, James reads the bill.  Once he reads it, he realizes that the bill is terrible; it represents a drastic government curtailment of liberty.  Before reading the bill, James was going to write a series of “common sense” pieces on election reform and on the Bill of Rights. 

Instead, he moves his opposition to the bill to the front of the list of views yet to be written about and puts out a statement.  It turns out that the bill also has opposition from really conservative folks.  James loves the right to bear arms like he loves the rest of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.  So, at his manager's urging, James puts his views on the Second Amendment up before getting to what he's going to say about the First, the Fourth, the Fifth and the Eighth amendments (naturally, James loves those too).  It'll help raise money.  And only by raising money will James get to be elected, and only by being elected will James be able to do all that good that he wants to do for the people.

James wins the election.  He's been in office for a few months and a bill is before one of his committees.  James thinks it's a great, well-drafted bit of legislation that will really help people.   Bob, a lobbyist, stops by James's office.  Bob represents some of those generous folks who helped out James with donations during the campaign; not only that, James and Bob have become fast friends on Virginia's many golf courses, and Bob is planning to hold a fundraiser for James's re-election next year that is expected to raise half a million dollars. 

The people Bob represents really hate this bill that's in front of James's committee.  And Bob tells him so.  James is reluctant, but Bob marshals a series of reasonably good arguments that James hadn't considered yet.  Bob leaves and tells James to think it over.  No laws are violated in this exchange.  But James knows that Bob can just as easily hold a fundraiser for someone who is running against James.  In fact, James couldn't win re-election without the donations from the folks that Bob represents.  Besides, the arguments Bob presented were fairly solid.  James helps kill the bill in committee: not, he tells himself, because of fear of losing re-election but because of Bob's arguments.

Insurgency Land

This James is the very same well-meaning man and things begin much the same as above.  In fact, for a while, the insurgency is run like a campaign, until James comes to his senses.  He realizes that his main aim is to change the system.  To get non-politicians, like him, into decision-making roles so that legislation will be passed to make Washington and the House of Representatives dependent upon and responsive to the people who they are supposed to represent (the people alone); in the words that Mr. Lessig borrows from Thoreau in Republic, Lost, James is supposed to be a “rootstriker.” 

James hammers his non-partisan reform message home time and again; he puts it in front of specific policy positions, where it belongs.  If we're ever to have the common sense policies opposed by numerous special interests enacted, James reasons, we need election reform first.  In fact, James stays so consistently on his insurgent message that other people join in the insurgency.  By the time November of the election year rolls around, there is an insurgent Independent running in every U.S. House district in the State of Tennessee and the movement no longer has James as its recognizable leader. 

The reform movement's strength puts so much pressure on the incumbents to reform, that one of them actually introduces a bill into the U.S. House to create a voluntary viable public campaign finance option for candidates running for the U.S. House and Senate.

James “loses” and the people win

James loses the election, but the bill publicly funding campaigns passes a House and a Senate filled with members fearing a repeat of the Tennessee insurgency elsewhere.  President Huntsman signs the bill into law.  Matthew, one of the other Tennessee insurgents, is actually elected to the House and starts advocating for other electoral reforms; Matthew is more conservative on many issues than James, but on the non-partisan issues that really matter in the long term, like election reform, he remains a powerful thorn in the establishment's side.  Before long, a Constitutional convention is convened, and an amendment introducing other reforms into the process, including direct elections of the U.S. President and term limits for members of Congress, is passed by three fourths of the states. 

Matthew runs with public money in his second term and wins, and other non-politicians start to model the Tennessee insurgency in other states and to win election with publicly financed campaigns.  People hold office beholden only to the voters who elected them.  The people of this great country reform the system and take their government back from the old-guard politicians.  Even some of the Washington old-guard hangs around (at least until they're ousted by the new term limits).  But freed from the need to continuously fund-raise, and the need to draft wildly complicated bills with numerous “extras” added in the fine print to coax campaign money from lobbyists, even these members of Congress start to read bills before they pass them.  Before you know it, the same common sense that rules the day on Main Street starts to rule the day in Washington and then on Wall Street. 

Effective job-promoting laws pass.  Education opportunity and effectiveness improves.  The middle class starts to grow again; the deficit shrinks along with unemployment.

What happens to James, the first insurgent?  He gets to stay in Tennessee, where he gets a decent-enough paying job in the new economy.  He also gets to spend lots of time with his wife and family.  James did some good, and he didn't even have to move to Washington D.C. part of every week, sleeping on his brother's couch.  This is the perfect win-win for James.  He thinks Washington is a fine place to visit, but he'd rather not live there, if he can avoid it.  As an added bonus, while Matthew has to spend his days among politicians, James doesn't have to.

James the Insurgent “wins” and so do the People

What if James wins?  Well, then, James is the one who gets to introduce electoral reform and call for a Constitutional convention, but now he does it from Washington.  By night, sleeping on his high school teacher brother's couch keeps him sane after days spent with rich politicians.  (It is to be hoped that Matthew still wins too so that James has some non-politician company up there.)  Every night, a member of James's staff blogs all the inside dirt on what happened in the well of the house or in the committees that James is on. 

James has been in office for a few months and a bill is up for a vote in one of his committees.  James thinks it's a great, well-drafted bit of legislation that will really help people.   Bob, a lobbyist, stops by James's office.  Bob represents some of those generous folks who helped out James with donations during the campaign; not only that, James and Bob have become fast friends on Virginia's many golf courses, and Bob is planning to hold a fundraiser for James's re-election next year that is expected to raise half a million dollars.  Since Bob is James's friend, he figures that he can stop by without reading about his visit later in James's blog. 

The people Bob represents really hate this bill that's in front of James's committee.  And Bob tells him so.  James is reluctant, but Bob marshals a series of reasonably good arguments that James hadn't considered yet.  Bob leaves and tells James to think it over.  No laws are violated in this exchange. 

James the insurgent thinks:

“So, Bob can raise money for an opponent instead of for me at that fundraiser.  That's half a million dollars less for my re-election and half a million more for an opponent's: a million dollar swing.  Plus, I can't be sure whether we'll get the election reform bill passed or whether President Huntsman will sign it.  Maybe Bob could hold up the reform bill too.  Without the option of public funding, I might need the money Bob represents in order to get elected.” 

But this is James the insurgent.  Not James the candidate.  His thinking does not end there.

“But my job, the one I was elected to do, is to reform the system and do what's best for the people while I am here.  Getting re-elected isn't my number one goal; heck, my brother's couch sucks: getting elected in the first place wasn't my number one goal.  Bob can hold a fundraiser for someone else: I hope he does.  Now, let's evaluate his arguments objectively.”

James evaluates Bob's arguments and finds them wanting.  He helps get the bill out of committee and onto the floor of the House. 

James has his staff blog about the meeting with Bob and about where the pressure to kill the bill is coming from.  He loses a friend and a golfing buddy.  But his blog not only helps the bill pass, it also serves as an example to the public about why public funding for campaigns is so important, and the public financing bill passes too.  James loses to a challenger, Thomas, in the next campaign.  But that campaign has an unusual feature: it is the first entirely publicly funded campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. 

James gets to go back to Tennessee and Washington becomes a better place: we all win.

The Difference

You see, if I run this as a campaign, I risk beginning to see being elected as an end-in-itself.  Once I slip into that error, I lose the capacity to make things better.  Part of what it takes to make things better is to recognize that doing good is more important than being elected.  A campaign is a means to a particular end: getting elected.  But that end can easily get in the way of doing what is right.  If I think that doing what is right is more important than being elected, then it is also more important than raising money for my election and keeping money from my opponents.  And that means that when the lobbyist comes into my office, the only traction he has against me, the only hook, is whatever legitimate merit his arguments possess. 

An insurgency (in this case a bloodless and democratic one) is a means to a different sort of end: the aim of a democratic insurgency is to overthrow an alien occupying power and replace it with a government of the people.  Not only is that a good end for us to accomplish.  It is an end shared by many of the citizens of this country who identify as Republican and who identify as Democrats; it is an end that, if we accomplish it, can be a means to accomplishing whatever good we want to accomplish in our government, without interference from the alien powers that hold it hostage.