The Tripartite Identity of the Elected Official
I wish to clarify the complexity of the many hats that paint the broader strokes of our elected officials' responsibilities. The elected official is at once a politician, a legislator, and a social worker. Many candidates seem to be motivated to run for public office by one or two of these three roles, but few are driven by a desire and/or have the ability to adeptly act as all three. There is some degree of each in every elected official, but generally one trait runs dominant. There are the single-issue candidates who run on a policy platform, often drawing their inspiration from personal experience. These are the candidates that lobby for harsher penalties for DUIs because a family member was killed in a drunk-driving accident, who are frustrated by the de-funding of a school's art program and wish to strengthen state investments in the arts, or a small businessman who has seen the costs of providing health care to his employees skyrocket and is determined to p...