The Speaker of the House will soon begin the process of swearing in new members of Congress. Nearly all these members have sacrificed a great deal to get to the halls of Congress. What’s come to be known as the permanent campaign, a term that dates to the Reagan years, takes its toll. There are the many days and nights on the trail spent away from family and friends, the rigors of actual campaigning door-to-door, mastering the new art of doing it virtually, the never-ending fundraising, the need to deal with a generally adversarial media, not to mention the personal toll of negative campaigns. It’s a wonder that so many people are willing to do it at all. Yet every two years, thousands file the paperwork to throw their hats in the proverbial ring. According to Ballotpedia, as of September 2020, 3,263 candidates had filed paperwork with the FEC to run for the House, up slightly from the number in 2018.
Pollsters began exploring Americans’ interest in pursuing politics as a career in 1943 when NORC asked the first question about it. In 1945, when Gallup’s trend begins, 21% said they would want their son to choose politics as a life’s work. The pollsters only asked about sons at that time. The question was asked six more times before 1993 when Gallup asked about daughters for the first time. In 1993, 33% said they would want a daughter to choose politics and 32% in a separate question, a son. The last time Gallup posed the question in 2013, identical percentages (31%) indicated they would want a son or daughter to choose politics as a profession.
This year, the American Family Survey (AFS) posed the question differently from Gallup’s agree/disagree formulation. The online AFS gave people the option to choose “neither agree nor disagree.” Once again the responses for sons and daughter were virtually identical. Only 12% in this formulation agreed they would want a son to choose politics, 25% were ambivalent, and 62% disagreed (including 49% who disagreed strongly). For daughters, the responses were 11, 29, and 61%, respectively (and again, 49% disagreed strongly). We can’t know how people would have answered the question had identical wording been used in the Gallup and AFS questions, but it is a safe bet that a political career isn’t very popular.
A different question in the AFS this year asked people to agree or disagree with the statements “I think my son/daughter could become president.” People were more positive about this question than the other AFS question above. Still, only 27% indicated they thought their son could become president and 28% a daughter.
In 1943, NORC followed up its question by asking people why they felt so negatively about politics as a life’s work. NORC reported, “The reasons given center chiefly around the graft and dishonesty often associated with politics, as well as the insecurity of a political life.” That year when NORC asked people to agree or disagree with this statement: “It has been said that it is almost impossible for a man to stay honest if he goes into politics,” 48% agreed, while 42% disagreed. When Opinion Dynamics/Fox News asked a similar question 50 years later, 55% agreed that people who go into politics cannot remain honest.
This December, Gallup updated its battery of questions on the honesty and ethical standards of various professions. Members of Congress ranked at the bottom along with car salespeople. Only 8% said members had very high or high honesty and ethical standards. Eighty-nine percent gave that response about nurses. More than seven in ten gave grade school teachers, MDs, and pharmacists the highest marks. The association of politics with corruption is long-standing, but when the president pardons three former members of Congress, one of whom pled guilty to the misuse of campaign funds, another to securities fraud, and a third of misusing charitable contributions, the public is reminded of their long-held feelings. Trump isn’t the first president to pardon people convicted of serious wrongdoing, and thus far he has pardoned fewer people than his recent predecessors.
The widespread charge of corruption is no doubt unfair to the thousands who seek the office to pursue what they believe is a noble cause to serve the nation, but it is hard to remove a stain that has been embedded in the fabric of politics so long.
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January 01, 2021 at 04:00PM
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Politics As A Career: What The Polls Say - Forbes
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