“Natural Term Limits,” or, Why Only Shy People Should be Allowed to Go Into Politics
So, it appears that sweeping term limits — which I’ve been a big fan of well before another Ross (Perot) pushed the idea in 1992 — aren’t going to happen any time soon (I wonder why??).
Here’s a good consolation prize: only allow shy people to go into politics.
Why is that such a good idea?
Because modern, big-money politics overwhelmingly seems to attract egomaniacal blowhards, who regard the media limelight the way ticks regard their hosts’ blood or moths regard flames.
Endless Fundraising
They also have no problem squeezing their rich, corporate patrons and wealthy benefactors for money (and eventually, future employment).
Shy people feel uncomfortable doing that.
They also don’t feel comfortable ripping their opponents to shreds with attack ads.*
Instead, people with more reserved characters are more likely to have a finely-tuned inner compass.
They combine pragmatism with a gnawing impulse to “do the right thing” . . . and have a preternatural sense of what that is.
That’s the stuff of real leadership.
Now, all we seem to have are vapid, vainglorious media hounds, whose only finely-honed sense is . . . their own self-interest.
*See also, “When Being Close Counts”; “Virtual Front Porches: Running for President, William McKinley-Style“; and “Term Limits Redux.”
P.S.: of the four, famous visages on Mount Rushmore, only Teddy Roosevelt is regarded as a true extrovert — and there’s considerable evidence that he wasn’t that way as a child.
Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson was painfully shy his entire life.
And yes, you can have too much of a good thing: the local joke about Minneapolis’ long-time Congressman Martin Olav Sabo — a famously reserved Scandinavian — was that he once felt so strongly about an issue that he almost spoke up about it.
