I worked in Congress for 10 years. The US Senate, to be specific, for Senator Gordon Smith, Republican from Oregon. I had a unique experience, I think, as I started off as an intern in Portland (the mothership in the State offices), got a full-time gig in DC, then eventually came back to work in the field. I had hit all parts of the organization (Portland state office, DC, a satellite field office in Pendleton, and again in Portland). It is extremely rare for a congressional staffer to experience all of those types of offices (DC, State, and Field).
As an intern in Portland, and a Constituent Services Representative in DC, and as a field rep in Pendleton, I answered phones. Most people don’t call their Congressman’s office to say, “you’re doing a good job.” I can understand that. If you look at the approval ratings of Congress, Congress has the remarkable ability to not shine. So, based solely on the polls, one would not hold out too much hope that the next phone call into a Congressional office would be a complimentary one.
For the most part, the phone calls were, nevertheless, polite and straight to the point. “What is the Senator’s position on the bill?” “Please tell him to vote no” or “yes on the bill.” Every so often (I’d say 2 in 5 calls) someone would want to rant. Okay, fair enough. While I wouldn’t take notes on the lengthy monologues, I would seek for the salient points and mention those to the boss. Yes, I actually did. We kept a daily tally of “yes” and “no” vote requests on certain bills, and passed them onto the boss at the end of each day. But Gordon actually waltzed into the front office (in DC) from time to time, plopped himself down on the couch in front of my desk, and asked me what folks are calling in about.
We'd go over the popular stuff of the day, but sometimes what people had to say resonated with me, and I discussed those things with Gordon. I imagine many other members of Congress have similar practices of getting up to speed on constituent feedback as he did.
Once in a great while, we’d get threats. People would say, “people like you should be ________”; and they’d go on about being “drawn and quartered”, etc. But, those were vague, indirect threats. I got one very specific threat: “I will shoot you when you walk out of your building today.” That was a little disturbing because it was a Virginia phone number on the caller ID – not some guy 3000 miles away in Oregon. In that case, I contacted the Capitol Police, notified them of the threat. They got back to me and indicated that the guy had made similar threats to other offices earlier in the day. They dealt with him - although, I’m not sure how.
But, we’d get threats, and it was not uncommon. We knew that most of them were hollow threats, expressed by folks genuinely frustrated by what they thought was government gone awry. We never knew, however, when one of those threats would be delivered upon.
Then I got the call to work in the field, Pendleton followed by Portland. This was a whole ‘nother experience, because when people called up and made threats, they were close enough to deliver on those threats. Shoot, they could be outside the office door on their cell phones. In the field, you just don’t know. On the Hill, I was 3,000 miles removed from a threatening person, behind several layers of security in the Russell Senate Office Building that kept us relatively safe. In Burns, at Dairy Queen grabbing a Dilly Bar with my boss, no such comfort. No security. It was constantly in the back of my mind.
There was more than one occasion that I thought I would have to get between my boss (always calm and respectful), and those who seemed poised to fly off the handle (sometimes the most effective way to send an irrational person off the handle is to be calm and respectful). Fortunately, I never had to do anything physical to protect my boss (although, there was the time – in my private life - I had to tackle a person going after another public official).
As I reflect back on those threats, and potentially physical/violent occasions, it seems to me that they always began with a disagreement on policy. I learned from my boss (and truly, I did learn this from him, because before I met and observed him, I didn’t do this) that you can disagree without being disagreeable. Before, I found the arena of ideas as the great arena of zero-sum game. I win, you lose. You win, I lose. It was fun, it was a competition of words and wits. I was good at it.
But, then I got an internship working inside the beast. I discovered really quickly that there are two types of people in politics: noisemakers and lawmakers. So it is with life, I believe. There are those want to win the “contest” simply so that they can win (and get all the things that come with it: applause, kudos, attention, etc.), and then there are those who want to make an impact. I realized that I was, up until day 3 of my internship, a noisemaker in politics (and in life). I wanted to win. It was a matter of personal pride. If someone else won, I lost.
So I watched my boss, I took a step back and looked at politics from the inside out and had a life changing realization: I want to make an impact, not necessarily make noise.
Sure, you sometimes have to make noise to make an impact. But making noise was no longer the end goal. Making the impact was. From then on, I noticed that I spent more time listening to other folks than talking. More time picking their brains for ideas and nuggets of value, than telling them all about the holes in their logic. I still spent time espousing my ideas and philosophies, but from that time forward, it was more of an exercise of thinking out loud, trying to bounce ideas off other folks to see if certain theories I held actually survived the scrutiny of others. Before, I was less interested in whether or not I was right or wrong (although, I thought I was right), but more interested in making sure the other person didn’t discover the hole I knew I had in my own logic. I wanted to win, for winning's sake.
This paradigm shift spread from my political life to my personal life. Slowly, over the months and years, I began to smother the somewhat instinctive impulse to deal with friends, family, and associates who didn’t agree with me in a combative way, and began to look for the common points of agreement, and the win/win. The battle lines I would draw on matters in my life became fewer and fewer, resulting in fewer and fewer battles. Certainly, there are certain things I won’t budge on. Moral issues are those for me. But, I’ve learned to resist the impulse to charge into battle, and have embraced the “is there any other way to deal with this?” practice to conflict.
I wonder, now, what I would be like today, if I didn’t have that example of Gordon back then, 12 or so years ago (and, for the record, there were other fine examples - but for some reason, his is the one that clicked for me). Would I, by now, be so fed up with politics, politicians, and government that I’d be placing angry and, perhaps, threatening calls to Congress? Today, I look at that possibility with some level of horror. However, if I’m really honest with myself, I might just have to admit that I was on the path then to becoming a permanently frustrated and hopeless citizen in a country that just didn’t see things my way. Dangerous things happen with folks lose hope.
I’m glad I changed course. I’m a better and happier person for looking for the win/win as a position of first resort, instead of only seeing the win/lose approach as the position of only resort.
As one who has lived on both sides of this political fence (noisemaker vs. lawmaker), I say that life is much better as a lawmaker. Folks are your friends, not your adversaries, you can disagree with folks without being disagreeable, and, generally speaking, you get a lot more done at the end of the day (for your cause), than if you are simply out there to win the contest.
If you see life as a zero-sum game, take a moment, look around you, and find someone who always seems to be looking for a win/win. These are the folks who probably mystify and irritate you. But talk to them. Pick their brains. Sincerely try to figure them out. If you do this, you may just have the life-changing attitude conversion I had 12 or so years ago. And there will be less vitriol in our political (and personal) dialogue.
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