The Goals of a Politician

Politicians should be more restrained than Miss America contestants and not aspire to bring about “world peace” during their tenure. Besides the increasing doubtfulness that world peace will happen in anyone’s lifetime, it just seems persistently unattainable. So what should an aspiring politician reasonably assume they can devote their energies to? What’s the right scope for their legislative agenda?

In this year’s election season and close to home here in Jefferson County, we can distinguish two main positions on this idea. These positions conveniently enough distinguish Republican from Democratic agendas.

For instance in the Delegate 100 district race where Maria Russo is running as a Democrat and Bill Ridenour as a Republican, you can see significant differences in scope and vision. Russo’s campaign literature summarizes her position as “focused on building a better future and addressing key issues affecting the community.”  Ridenour’s “focuses on protecting and securing our freedoms and rights under the Constitution.” 

Russo lists her particular concerns as clean water, helping teachers and service workers, bringing good jobs to the county, upgrading infrastructure and internet service, and so on.  All locally focused initiatives.  

Ridenour lists religious freedom, lowering taxes, Second Amendment protections, immigration, and so on. All state or nationally focused initiatives.

It’s pretty clear that the interests and aspirations of these two candidates differ. One set is grounded largely within the bounds of the county, the other extends to the whole United States. 

Ridenour explicitly made this clear in a September 11 WRNR podcast hosted by Rob Mario and Bill Stubblefield. He says toward the end of the interview that “there’s a lot of stuff going on nationally … a lot of what I’ve been focussing on is what we can do as a state to insure that the federal government is not engaging in actions that are counter to what the people of West Virginia want or need.” 

Russo meanwhile explicitly states “Everyone, young or old, should have access to great opportunities and a future they can believe in right here at home. Together, we can improve the lives of the people in District 100 that I hope to represent.” 

It’s irrelevant what you as a voter might feel about the social and cultural value of what Ridenour or Russo believe needs to be done. It’s more important to focus on what either of them can likely get done in the legislative position that one or the other of them will hold, our Delegate for District 100 in West Virginia. 

The day has only 24 hours during which a delegate can do something. Do you as a voter in District 100 want that delegate spending those hours trying to get your child’s teacher higher pay or lower electricity bills or do you want them spending them to keep immigrants out of the state and extend open carry gun laws to 18 year olds? Electing someone to a position for which they have no authority or opportunity to make the changes they want to happen only guarantees that you, the voter, will likely get little from their service.