Methods & Tactics, page 4
CREATING INTERVIEW COMMITTEES THAT CAN GAIN
RESPECT FROM VOTERS, BY EARNING AND DESERVING IT
This is a first draft of the types of guidelines for how “interview committees” can be created and managed, by any state group that is working toward goals that are compatible with The Two-Party Party. It may be necessary to adjust and adapt these guidelines and goals for the needs of any particular state, especially during the 2024 election cycle, while these types of groups are trying to get up and running, and get some experience. Nevertheless, we hope that: (i) any state group will at least ponder these comments; (ii) if some state group believes these guidelines can be improved, they will send us an email, telling us WHEN they are going to be considering and discussing various proposals, during a video conference, so that we can join that conference, hear what they have to say, learn from that experience, and offer any suggestions we would like to have considered, by them, before they make any final decisions.
1. If an interview committee has 6 people, it can be arranged/assembled so that:
(i) two members will be trusted and lifelong Republicans, who have established a reputation for being “moderate,” defined for this purpose as, “willing to at least listen to, and negotiate in good faith with, moderate Democrats”
(ii) two members will be trusted and lifelong Democrats, who also are “moderate” as defined above;
(iii) the final two members should not have a record of political leanings or activities; instead, they should have spent their lives and careers being good and diligent workers, who enjoyed a fair amount of success, not just in their careers, but also in having stable and happy marriages, and in raising kids who turned out well and became respectable citizens with good jobs.
2. If handled properly, age and experience can help establish (or at least enable) respect and trust. After seeing how my own personal and political attitudes and experiences evolved and matured, over time, I would strongly prefer to NOT have anyone who is still in his 20s or 30s, on any interview committee. Instead, I would have a greater tendency and willingness to trust – or at least listen seriously to – someone who is at least 40, and not yet into his/her 70s, when it comes to the types of evaluations these interview committees will be making.
3. The members of an interview committee should have calm and reassuring demeanors, and communication styles. The committees (and their endorsements) will be harshly attacked, criticized, and insulted, by candidates who were NOT endorsed (and by their staffs, as well). So, the members of any such committee need to be the type of people who can take that type of criticism in stride, without responding in a similar manner.
Having said the above, I would add that it is not just a “pipe dream” to think that genuinely good people can be found, who can be persuaded to work with committees like these. In complete seriousness, a proposal comparable to the above would not be an unusual statement of plans and goals, in business; and, lots and lots of truly skilled business consultants are indeed readily available, who would LOVE to be asked and invited to serve on a committee such as this (so long as they can add it to the `Work Experience’ section of their resume/CV, which should be actively encouraged, by any state organization).
What is being proposed here is similar to a business management team on a work retreat, talking honestly among themselves, about what the main goals of their company should be, over the next five years. The main difference is, the need to get better people into elected offices, in government, is probably somewhere between a thousand times, and a million times, more important than some strategic plan that some single company has decided to consider, evaluate, and then decide upon. Why? Because this is the fate of the entire United States we’re talking about.
We can gripe and moan all we want about how badly impaired and dysfunctional Congress has become, without doing anything to actually fix the problem; or, we can create a logical and reasonable approach which has a real chance to succeed, if we will study, evaluate, and learn from the types of methods, tactics, and strategies that competent, capable, well-run companies use, to tackle and actually solve the challenges they face. It is not a miracle, or an out-of-reach idle fantasy, when a company finds and implements ways that enable and require its employees, managers, officers, and directors to work together, to achieve a set of goals that the entire company has somehow agreed upon. Rather than being some sort of `miracle’, the fact is that thousands of well-run companies do exactly that, every month, and every year.
The bottom line is, the deeply disturbing and even frightening dysfunctionality of our political system, at this time in history, has created a unique opportunity to offer truly skilled and qualified people a genuine, serious, and very real chance to have – and to create, and exert – a huge, critical, and enormously positive and needed influence, and impact, on what will happen in politics, in the U.S., over the coming 20 to 30 years. And – even better – we can offer qualified and respected people a genuine and actual chance to do that kind of good, without requiring them to sacrifice and severely damage their own private and personal lives, and the happiness and well-being of their families, to some god-awful craving and need for power. We are not asking the people on these committees to stop whatever they are doing, and spend the entire next year, running and campaigning for some office, at huge personal, privacy, and financial expense to themselves. As an analogy, we are not asking anyone who might be willing to serve on these committees, to start building new factories from scratch, at huge expense. Instead, we simply are asking them to go inside factories that are already there, and to look around and see how they are doing their work, then come back out with informed and insightful appraisals of which factories have the better people, and the better machinery, so that we can make better choices about which ones we should choose, sign contracts with, and invest in, so that they will make better-quality things that we need to buy.
In today’s politics, far too many voters make their choices, of which candidate to vote for in THIS race, and which one to vote for in THAT race, and who to vote for in these third, and fourth, and fifth races, and in twenty other races, based on information which is not just inaccurate (which would be bad enough), but which is actively and intentionally misleading, and in many cases, outright dishonest. The reason so many candidates spend so much money on TV ads, is because so many voters end up making their decisions, based on TV ads. However, the very nature and essence of TV ads is that they have absolutely no duty, obligation, or responsibility to accurately and honestly describe who a candidate really is. Instead, they are open invitations for campaign managers and pollsters to figure out what the public wants to hear, and then create false and misleading ads which tell those voters whatever they said they want to hear. It would not (and will not) be difficult, to be able to create something which is at least “better than THAT”. And, for the first few election cycles, the only thing that really will be necessary, to establish a foundation and begin making serious progress, and to gain enough credibility and attention to later be able to climb up to a higher level, is to be able to sincerely and honestly offer the voting public something which is, truthfully and accurately, “better than THAT”.
Since so MUCH is at stake (i.e., the future of this nation, the future of this planet, and the future of all humanity, including our children, and our grandchildren) – and, since huge numbers of people truly and seriously want something – anything – which works better than the current system – it should not be all that much of a challenge to create intelligent and serious interview committees, made up of mature, intelligent adults who have lived good lives, had good careers, and raised good kids. And, it should not be all that hard to persuade voters that a set of honest, candid, and transparent evaluations, by mature, responsible, and objective adults, would be at least SOMEWHAT better, at providing useful, insightful, and honest information to voters, than the system of slick, calculated, and misleading marketing puffery and TV ads – paid for by the candidates, but created by others – that we are using, today.