Dear Elected Federal Office-Holder:

There are not really very many of you, are there? There is the President of the United States. There is the Vice President, also known as the Presiding Officer of the Senate. There fewer than five hundred U.S. Representatives and there are five score Senators. We are not writing this letter to  justices, district or appellate judges, not to ambassadors or generals or cabinet officers, for they are all appointed to their offices, not elected.

Directly (Senators, Representatives) or indirectly (President, Vice President), we the people of the United States elect you to go to Washington and to do a job. Those jobs begin and end on dates certain. If you want to be re-elected to your current office or wish to campaign for another elected  Federal office, that is your right as an adult citizen of the United States.  Your right, yes, but not your duty.

We the unelected electors therefore make this demand: plot your re-election and campaign for it ON YOUR OWN TIME. Do not do it during hours of official duty. Do not campaign or raise funds from an office furnished and paid for by the taxpayers.  When it comes to re-election, you are just another guy or gal with stars in your eyes. You have a right to try to be re-elected. But you have no more right than anyone else. What you do possess which your opponents do not is the power to subvert your high office and make it work for your personally. We warn you: do not even think of it.

Like any normal small business, the Asheville TRIBUNE expects its employees to separate life at work from life during off-hours. And we ask elected officials to do the same: play your computer games, invest your personal money and campaign for re-election outside office hours. As citizens we expect all elected officials to separate cleanly and openly their official paid duties from their personal game plans. Caesar’s wife is not  the only public figure who must be above suspicion.

Granted, it is inconvenient for you to separate your re-election activities from your official duties. But inconvenience is one which price you pay for our support. How natural, how quick it is to place your fund raising telephone calls from your office suites. But when it comes to re-election, please remember to act like one of the rest of us. Leave your premises. Campaign after hours and from your privately funded headquarters or from your home.

You shake your head and wonder why the popular movement keeps on growing to limit how long or how many times you may hold your office. It is because we know that you are only human and that you will be sorely tempted to make your re-election more of a sure thing by campaigning and raising funds using public resources as an unfair launching pad. Too much power held too long is not good for your moral health.

The TRIBUNE is not talking mere legality. We are talking about deeper, more important things. We are talking bedrock: your personal honor, your self-discipline, your respect for the American people and for other citizens who are every bit as fit for office as you and whom you should treat as you would like to be treated.

There was a time in ancient Athens when all the generals were selected by casting lots.  “Why not,”  asked those long gone Greeks. For we Athenians are a pretty competent lot. Look, there on the left is that gadfly Socrates. On that balcony stands Pericles. Over yonder is the comic playwright Aristophanes. My ancestors fought at Marathon. We are a pretty good bunch. So any one of us Athenians ought to be fit for combat leadership!

My dear office-holder. We are not Athenians of the Golden Age and we do not demand that you be a Solon or Aristotle or Euripides.  We are not yet so desperate to fill our offices that we will cast lots or pay no attention to individual talent and personal virtue. But if we have done you the honor of sending you to Washington, do keep your eye on what we sent you there to do. We are not paying you to be re-elected. We know that you only want “a fair advantage,” that extra boost to re-election prospects which the cachet and perquisites of office give you.  But in the end, Mr. President, Vice President, Senator or Representative X, Y or Z, that just is not fair. It is not right.

Mixing public duty with misuse of public resources to further private ambition is basically dishonorable. It is also lazy and sets a pitiable example to the young people who some day  will surely replace you.  A final word of advice: just say “no.” Keep your optional re-election activities in separate, water tight compartments from your current high office which is anything but optional and which you have sworn to fill honorably. We will permit you to try to get your job again. But please try on your own, personal time.

-OOO-

Patrick Killough Editorial 09/24/97 for ASHEVILLE TRIBUNE