My unselfish public service

A few friends and I convened at the hunting lodge on the weekend to talk politics.

“Gentlemen, I’m thinking of making another run,” I announced. “I assume I can count on your backing?”

Admittedly, my speaking voice is in need of a fine tune here and there, but I was rather taken aback when my cadre of loyal support sped off up the driveway leaving me to choke in a cloud of dust.

Politics is in my blood, and vice versa. I’m one of those people who think life is empty without a few good years leeching off the public and mismanaging their lives.

My dumper sports a delightful tapestry in which the inspiring words of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy are lovingly woven by some anonymous Indonesian child labourer:

“The educated citizen has a duty to serve the public. He may be a precinct worker or President. He may give his talents at the courthouse, the state house, the White House. He may be a civil servant or a Senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser… You will find the pressures greater than the pay. You may endure more public attacks than support. But you will have the unequalled satisfaction of knowing that your character and talent are completely going to waste and your morale and sense of worth are slowly atrophying.”

OK, so the last part may suffer a tad from a slight misquotation, but the message is clear as vodka: any loser can aspire to pitifully paid precinct work. Indeed, it’s a loser’s duty to subject himself to sporadic attack by the ignorant unwashed.

Call me an idealist, but if I didn’t appear on TV every night telling you how I know best, I just know in my wallet I’d be doing you all a disservice.

The truth is I’m just not selfish enough to stay out of politics.

But please, don’t mistake my romance for naivety. I know all too well it takes a shed load of soft cash to quaff a large slice of the public pie. It’s no accident that the hunting lodge elite is comprised of The Great and the Good–ness–Me–Look–at–the–Size–of–Your–Chequebook. Without their generous contributions to the cause, I’d be as dead as the duck we shot.

Money is power. And power money. Money talks, and so do I if you pay me enough.

A successful man like me needs friends. No, scrap that. A successful man like me needs rich friends. Everyone else can go hang.

It’s like folks always tell me: I’m a man of the people. Without the people’s endorsement, I get lonely and needy and curl up with my teddy bear in the corner of my campaign office, sucking my thumb ‘til it’s white as snow. I crave the public breast. I need to suckle. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I need to be loved. Though not right now, I’ve got a column to write.

Democracy is a Freudian thing. To triumph in a popular vote, the victorious candidate must sneak behind the curtain in the polling booth and have the voter by the balls just as he casts his X.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. I’m no graduate of the Bill Clinton School of Government. For me, sex is limited to my appeal – which happens to be enormous.

“Some men are born for the public,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. “Nature by fitting them for the service of the human race on a broad scale, has stamped them with the evidences of her destination and their duty.”

He knew me so well.

The trouble is, I sometimes fear the public just aren’t ready for a Superman like myself. I make your average minion feel inadequate. My mind, my looks, my charm, my money – all of these feats can work against me in a democracy. Voters are primitive. They get jealous of my infinite attributes. Particularly the men. They vote for someone who makes them feel safe, not someone who makes their wives swoon onto the linoleum.

And that’s not the only pitfall facing us publicly spirited sorts. Jefferson was right: "When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property."

Yuck!

Once you’ve basked in the glory of your elevated profile, there’s a job to do. This job is a 24/7 wrestling bout with public opinion, in which you get pinned again and again by the bloated, sweaty, leotarded beast that calls itself the mass.

The BBC commissioned a poll this week of British public attitudes towards smoking. 70% said they wanted the government to stop them smoking. 64% said smoking was none of the government’s business.

There’s only one solution. You all need a guy like me to educate you. The only way to stop me is to vote for me. Vote for me and I’ll go to war on your ignorance. You’ll never vote for me again.

Some say the spirit of public service died with Kennedy in that motorcade in Dealey Plaza, Dallas. They say Kennedy and Camelot was “All for one and one for all,” and nowadays it’s more like “All for me and none for all.”

But what the hell do they know?

Schmucks.