Translation of excerpts from Robert Heinlein’s book, Take Your Government Back - part 19

Of course, you can not deal with all these related to caucus efforts, but simply bring together Mr. Chestnyagi’s supporters, form an electoral committee of them, and put forward a candidate. But you don’t have a lot of chances to win an election. Holding a caucus is indeed worth the time and effort spent on it, and a decision of caucus in favor of your candidate will greatly increase his chances of winning the election. And if the decision is not in your favor, it will stop you at long distances, before the start of the election campaign, which, in this situation, you should not even begin.



But why did you choose Mr. Chestnyagu for the nomination? Because you think that he is suitable for the post disputed by him, and when choosing you were guided by three main criteria: the candidate, in your opinion, is suitable for the position for which he will be nominated; the candidate has the time and opportunity to work in office; and he has a chance to win the election. Priorities should be placed in that order.



That the candidate is suitable for the position means that you have seen him in real social work. For example, in solving legal, trade union, international, national security, tax problems, atomic weapon control issues, rights of conscripts, and the like. At the same time, the opinion of your candidate on these issues should not contradict the political program of your party, and therefore your own convictions. In addition, you are sure that being in power, he will act wiser than your party colleagues in the past, because you want to improve your country, and not leave everything as it is.

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Choose a candidate among your acquaintances in political work, because it is very doubtful that the right person will be among those who do not bother themselves with political problems, and no matter how smart and talented they are in other areas. Unfortunately, very few people who have reached heights in other areas have a political itch and a desire to change something in their country. Do not take into account those who want to start a political career immediately with high posts. A suitable candidate should have years of unpaid community service, even if it is not political activity. This may be a jury job, participation in the arrangement of the city, the scout movement, the fight against racial prejudice. Do not nominate famous people who are not involved in public work, even if their name is in the “Who is who” directory, and they are ready to fully finance the election campaign.



You should also have no doubts about the honesty and personal qualities of the candidate. The famous journalist Henry Mencken once remarked that a person can be assessed by what he earns his living. I do not quite agree with him, in the part that it is necessary to evaluate exclusively in this way, but the fact that a person’s business characterizes his personality is a fact. So, look what your candidate does for a living. Is it honest business from your point of view? Learn about its reputation among competitors. If, say, he is a lawyer, what kind of business does he undertake? If the doctor - how does his practice look like, does he devote time to charitable work? If he keeps a restaurant, is there a neat kitchen? What is his policy on tips received by waiters? In some types of business, bad faith is so common that a person will be considered literally holy if he works honestly.



In any case, carefully check your candidate (I once made a terrible mistake without making it, the consequences were so unpleasant that I strongly refuse to state them here). Among other things, the candidate must be able to reconcile and be able to cooperate. Do not burden yourself with the support of an inflexible person who quarrels with everyone and does not want to compromise. Make sure that the candidate understands that the society gives him power so that he works for the good of society, listens to the opinion of those who put him on the post, and is responsible to them for their actions. Also make sure that he is confident in your ability to successfully conduct an election campaign, and during the campaign will behave according to your plans - we will return to this property in the paragraph on how to evaluate the candidate in terms of the probability of his election winning.



The applicant must also possess those qualities that are expected from the congressman - remarkable intelligence, good education, and rich life experience. The most important of all three qualities mentioned is the mind.



Now let's talk about the applicant's ability to work in the government. This can be a stumbling block when choosing a candidate. To begin with, the applicant should be able to devote all his time to election campaigns - three months before the primaries and three months - before the main elections. If he wins the election, he will have to instruct someone to run his business, and leave for the capital. Thus, the question of earning a living eliminates at this stage at least 90 percent of the best candidates for government posts, it is doubtful that a person with a family and employed will be able to spend all his time on the campaign for six months. In this regard, pensioners, housewives, young bachelors, rentiers, and people of liberal professions, such as actors, writers, lawyers, lecturers, and so on, are more promising. Sometimes these are farmers, school teachers and independent entrepreneurs who have managed to arrange their affairs and free up time for the campaign. Occasionally, employees can negotiate with the employer and take a vacation at their own expense. But more often you will hear in response to the proposal to nominate candidates for something like: “Thank you for such a complimentary offer, I would agree, but I need to feed my family.” That is why, in the government at elected positions so often you can see lawyers. They have their own clientele, they can organize their work in such a way that their earnings will not suffer. However, at the same time, lawyers for some reason absolutely do not know how to write laws. If your choice will stop at the housewife, then hiring a housemaid, leading the household for her, will be part of the cost estimates of the election campaign.



By the way, the opportunity to spend time on the election campaign should be yours - the campaign manager. If you are a woman, then perhaps it will be easier for you to find time for it. But I would not advise engaging in a campaign in combination with the main job, neither the candidate being nominated nor the manager of his campaign, this can only be done under some very exceptional and insurmountable circumstances. Because in this case, you will work hard, and the accumulated fatigue can lead to your making unsuccessful decisions, and your physical inability to work during the entire campaign. For managers and candidates, the campaign is a hard test of endurance, unlike agitators and other volunteers, for whom the campaign is a pleasant inspirational hobby.



Now let's talk about the ability to win elections. The strongest chance of winning an election is a strong healthy man, from thirty to thirty-five years old, a veteran, a war veteran, handsome but not overly glamorous appearance, of medium height, a good speaker, friendly, not overly aggressive, married, having at least one child, well-known and respected in local society, a church member who has experience in public institutions and experience of participation in elections (the first does not automatically mean the second: the position at which the candidate worked could be appointed), has long been in your party, and not opposed to his campaign running others.



Personally, I have never met such a candidate in my life. Moreover, one of the best candidates I met was a childless, tongue-tied, ugly as a horse, and an unknown woman of seventy years old. But she had a strong character, and she was so honest and altruistic, that when communicating, she immediately felt these qualities



So none of the listed qualities of an ideal applicant is necessary for a candidate for an election. Even St. Peter could have been elected mayor of Hell, with good organization of his campaign. So if your candidate is not extinguished in public, is suitable for an elective office, and has the opportunity to work on it, then he can be put to the polls, even if he is not trained in good manners. Completely unsuitable for nomination, the candidate usually turns out to be only because of his business skills to work in the office for which he is elected. Each deviation of your candidate from the qualities of an ideal candidate will somewhat complicate the work on the election campaign, but your opponents will face the same problem when nominating a candidate. And they are likely to be so concerned with finding a candidate that is ideal for an election, that they will pay much less attention to other, more important qualities, and will be vulnerable in this aspect. For example, their fine-looking candidate may turn out to be a rogue, convicted in the past for fraud.



But the most important criterion when choosing a candidate who can be chosen, the criterion that will give you a lot of sleepless nights, is his life experience. The first participation in the elections is unlike anything else. “Nervous Bride” is the most appropriate epithet for first-choice candidates, however I saw many brides who were not nervous at all. As for inexperienced candidates, they are always worried. I bet you will never meet a candidate running for the first time in your life who is not nervous.



Sometimes it even seems to me that the first participation in the elections gives the candidates a special nervous breakdown, which I call “candidacy”. Inexperienced campaign managers may also suffer from this disorder, in a milder form - unless they have previously acquired immunity during election campaigning and voting for voters. This candidate is very similar to chickenpox: they are easily infected, and, having been ill, acquire immunity to it. And it is also better to have a candidiasis at the youngest possible age, when the disease is much easier, without complications. The symptoms of candidacy are: extreme nervousness, irritability, suspicion, reaching the degree of persecution mania, and directed not at all to the one to be feared, the ability of the language to speak separately from the head, especially in public, when it can cause maximum damage to reputation, and almost childish propensity to act contrary to all advice and instructions.



One of the candidates in the 1940 presidential election, the late Wendell Wilkie, could easily have won the election, being almost an ideal candidate in all respects. In addition, his election campaign was well funded and managed by a team of the country's best political technologists. His supporters were enthusiastic, and his rivals had to work in difficult conditions, because their candidate had already completed two presidential terms, and the tradition in the country did not encourage more than two consecutive terms in power, although, of course, the ruling president is easier to nominate. Although, in elections of national scale, finding a candidate in power is not as useful as it can be useful in elections at the local level.



But all these advantages were lost, and the campaign was lost as a result of Mr. Wilkie’s utterly failed tour of the country. The journalists who were with him confessed that sometimes it seemed to them that Mr. Wilkie himself was harming himself at every opportunity. This was his first election. And to the fact that after these unsuccessful elections for him, he learned much better to hold out in public, becoming the wise statesman we remember him, who contributed a lot to cohesion and cold-blooded wisdom manifested by our nation in wartime. I think that it was during those presidential elections that Mr. Wilkie got sick with the candidacy.



So if you have a candidate who you plan to nominate for congressional elections, or for some important government post, in a year or two, it is useful for him to take part in some elections of a not very large scale, say, for the post of head of the cleanup department head of catching stray dogs and cats. This will prepare the candidate for the future struggle for an important post.



And one note from myself: I noticed that I used three cases in this book to illustrate my words, in each of which the Republican presidential candidate lost the election. This is not a deliberate bias to one of the parties, just all three cases are very indicative.



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