On Clocks and the Fundamental Motivation for all Politicians
This past semester I interned for a Texas State Representative, and luckily, I did not take the internship for credit. Had I needed the hours, I suspect I would have had to answer the question of, “what did you learn?” or even worse, “how did your internship enhance the education you received in classes?”
These questions would have been difficult to answer considering how little I did at the office once I quickly finished the work ascribed to me. Texas legislators are only in session once every two years,so my boss, the office’s Chief of Staff, actually struggled to come up with tasks I couldperform.Days at the office were occasionally excruciating because I spentthe latter part of my shift fishing for things to do.
In between the time I spent surfing the net and coming up with new excuses to leave early, I realized something very important about my life and found a terrific exampleof one of political science’s most fundamental principles.
My realization arose from my Kafkaesque tribulations in the heart of our State bureaucracy.The “Grind” may seem like a fairly intuitive concept, but you really need first-hand experience to understand the day-to-day drudgery of office life. To fully comprehend a 9-5 office job, you need to hear endless debates about the value of one brand of office supplies over another, a co-worker’s weekly, painfully exhaustive account of his weekend, or just the sound of nothing but typing, heavy breathing, and a sputtering air conditioner.
But at least I have a new post-graduation goal: find a way to support myself that allows me to work on my own time. Ironically enough, a certain quirk about the clocks in the office helped me come to this conclusion.
One wall of the office inexplicably sported a row of at least a dozen clocks of a uniform size and color. Like in an ostentatious, international-themed coffee shop or the headquarters of a cable news network, there was a label with the name of a city printed in block lettering below each clock. Only instead of giving the current time of Rome,Tehran, or literally any other place in a different time zone, all the cities were located in the same two Texas counties that composed the Representative’s district.
Ideally, the row of clocks would have all displayed the same, precise time.This was not the case. Some of the clocks ran fast, so a town no more than thirty miles from the restwould display a time fifteen minutes different than every other clock. Worst of all, the one-hour shift after daylight savings time further compounded the inconsistencies after some clocks were changed and others were not.
Part of the time, I would pretend I worked for a magical district where the rules of the space-time continuum did not apply, but mostly, the ticking of a dozen or more clocks transformed me into the narrator in Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart”.I felt like I needed to confess to a gruesome crime or at the very least, commit a crime that I could confess to later.
One day, however, the row of clocks provided the perfect example forsomething that political scientists considerthe motivating force for politicians.The mayor of a town in the Representative’s district visited the office one day and like most visitors, immediately commented on the row of clocks.
“Why ain’t my town got one of dem clocks?” he chided the Chief of Staff.
I was in shock. Didn’t the man understand the pointlessness of a row of clocks that all displayed the same time?
Apparently, he did not. The next time I came into work I was told that the mayor personally emailed the Representative and I would have put up a new clock for his town.Then, as I stood precariously on an office chair adjusting the time of the new clock, I realized how the episode with the mayor illustratedprecisely how federalism works.
Many people do not understand that the motivation for reelection is the driving force of politics. Constituents say, “jump” and representativesask, “how high?”Of course, it helps if you’re the mayor of a town, but elected officials will do whatever it takes to please their constituents. Whether it takes voting with your district over your heart, adding some last-minute “pork barrel” spending to legislation, or demanding your intern install another logic-defying clock on the wall, politicians are constantly trying to garner votes in order to stay in office. If they don’t, they are out of a cake job that offers amplepower, prestige, and pay.
But if they keep pleasing enough people, they get elected to even higher office with even greater perks. Life as a politician is sweet, and our elected officials will do whatever it takes to stay in office orget elected to a more powerful position.
Sure, I could have saved myself some time and learned the consequences of raw ambition by watching Hillary Clinton’s campaign since Super Tuesday, but kids, I can’t putthat on my résumé. And besides, they gave me a personally autographed copy of Rick Perry’s book On My Honor that I will cherish forever or perhaps use as kindling next winter.