Political leadership and the three rules of plumbing

     One more week, and I will be just another civilian, no longer a county commissioner.
When people ask me if I find the transition difficult, I say no, because serving as a commissioner is what I have done for eight years. I was a civilian before, and considered myself a civilian during, the tenure. So I'm still a civilian.
     The only difference between a commissioner and anyone else, as far as I am concerned, is that voters go to the polls to choose commissioners to make policy based on the wants and needs of the general population -- ALL the people in the county, not just the people who voted for them, or members of their party, or sect or whatever.
     Commissioners do not, and should not, run the daily operations of the government all by themselves. That's why campaign promises should be modest, and expectations by the public realistic. Those who think commissioners or town council members or delegates to Annapolis or Washington should take charge are missing the point: No one is smart enough, or versed enough in all of the complexities of governing, to be successful without the collaboration of others, both professionals and volunteers.
     Okay, I know some of my more conservative friends are saying that's just the problem with government -- it has become too complex. It should be simple, as is in, cut spending and cut taxes. I have held the same opinions myself, in less enlightened days. People with leanings to the right of center, politically, like to use bumper stickers to map out an action plan. You can get elected to public office by playing to that theory, but you can't sustain any effort to reach success with such a simplistic approach.
     Let's use plumbing as an analogy. I heard a joke once that anyone can be a plumber if they remember three rules: One, (sewage) flows downhill, two, payday is on Friday, and, three, the boss is an ass.
     A lot of us look at politics the same way.
    Those of us who like to play do-it-yourself soon learn that plumbing is not that easy at all. You have to have a basic knowledge of the system, first of all, and then you have to have the right tools to work on it. You have to make investments in time, materials and talent, and you will always, always, make at least four trips to the hardware store before you bring home the right parts. You live with skinned knuckles, sore knees, a bad back, and little respect. It's a complete and apt analogy with holding public office.
     In theory, our system is the best on earth, despite the assertions of a copy desk editor I once knew who had come to believe that what America really needed was a benevolent dictator. The hole in the idea is, who gets to define benevolent? The people who want to cut programs, or the people whose programs are cut?
     So I believe that our best leaders have vision and the ability to communicate them to the population. They win the job then of moving inside a system that is already prescribed by law, regulation, custom, and the constraints of time and money, which is almost always completely different than what they told the people who voted for them. And always, there are people who do the actual work, and they have skills (or not) and habits and knowledge that requires that they, too, are communicating well with the elected official who has been chosen to represent the people.
     Again, when I say The People, I mean ALL the people, not just the ones who might share a bus to a rally or the six or eight words on a poster that sum up just about everything they know.
     Time and again, I have publicly recognized the contributions of paid county staff, from the directors of the departments to the men and women on the roads crew and the maintenance facilities, who make government come into focus as a plan and then become action.  Then there are the hundreds of citizens who serve on myriad commissions, committees and boards, advising the leadership on everything from parks and recreation to fire and emergency services to economic development to planning and zoning to ethics to senior citizens and social services to courts and law enforcement ....
No one person, no group of three, no board of five can do it by themselves.
     I have the feeling that the incoming board of commissioners believe they have the skills and the knowledge and the experience to run things. Maybe they think some paid positions can be replaced with volunteers. 
     My best wishes for them would be that their education is swift and well taken, with the least possible damage to the system they do not now fully understand. My hopes for the rest of us civilians is that they learn quickly that they are just like us, but with more responsibility for the moment.  Because the first rule of plumbing does apply.