Developing a Sense of Presence

The challenge for every aspirant to elected office now is developing name recognition and beyond that, a sense of presence and familiarity with how a person thinks and sees the world. In the old days, that was indicated by what fixed position they took on pat issues -- rather than the trust in the representative’s ability to come up with the best solution -- considering everything. That is the job of the new politician -- unlike the old.

In a world of information, the office holder may not have all the information (answers) initially -- and so it is even more important to learn how the candidate can process new information. Otherwise, he is like so many others, who suppress, distort and deny every information that does not confirm his preconceived judgment -- which he will not reconsider. That is the familiar frustration with bureaucrats.

But every dying breed gives way to a new breed. What is striking about the differences in the Democrats and Republicans this year, is how much the former pool is drawn fairly narrowly from lawyers -- instead of the much broader representation and gene pool of the Republicans recruiting from a broader cross section of society, experience and perspective.

Do we want all our government representatives to be lawyers -- or should they have a broader perspective of life and experience, beyond laws? Bad laws are job security for trial lawyers. Good laws are the will of the people -- coming from every walk of life. Laws were not meant to be an interference of life -- as they have come to be regarded; they were meant to be means by which people attained their happiness -- and freedom.

All that is lost -- in which the new meaning of government is to control every aspect of our lives, and determine what is (politically) correct for everybody -- rather than increasing our choices and the expression of intelligence.

I have one of the great presences on the World Wide Web http://www.freerepublic.com/~mikehu/ because I was one of the first writers to recognize it as the publication of the future, and publish my writings there rather than in the more traditional forms and ways, that disappear as soon as the next issue is published. So of all the candidates running for office anywhere, I have the greatest archives of recorded thought -- upon which to make a valid assessment of the quality and competence of my thinking.

It was not done just for the purpose of seeking office -- obviously, and there may even be a compromising or contradictory statement somewhere, but on balance, I think it represents one of the great collections of innovative thinking as these developments were being shaped in these dialogues and discussions.

These new forums are very different in that they are interactive and collaborative -- instead of soliloquies and rants, of people talking to themselves. Even books were of this nature. New dialogue, new culture, new government is this vital dynamic of interactive communication.

Many of the people running for office as Republicans, have this similar background -- of being very competent and confident of dealing with the new technologies of information processing and sharing -- rather than the old manner of hoarding, manipulating, distorting information as the old familiar political game.