Bennett Sewell Art

Hattie Mae:

 

I’m going to talk for Henry.  He is talked out and he really is just startin’.

 

See that smile on his face.    IT’s only been a few days since his narrow win in the district race.   He gave the usual victory speech with arranged national media coverage.   It was a victory for all American people returning to the values of our founding fathers, to the hard work required to make the next day better than this day and to prepare a better world for our children and their children in the face of the many attacks from within and without.   He then said how proud and humble that he had been selected by the good people of his district to represent them and he would do his best.

 

He had a day of rest with his family and then began meeting with his grass roots supporters.  Before and during the campaign, their message was what can we do for you.  And all of a sudden, for some of them it has become what can you do for us.   Many of the requests were doable, an effort to bring development to the area, to help in local poverty programs and job training, and reduce taxes.  But some were more difficult, driven by righteous fever, the social issues that deal with moral and religious issues where compromise is so difficult and changing attitudes comes so slow.  He heard the message; my support for you stops if you compromise on these key issues.

 

And then he met with his financial backers, close door.  For some of them, the message was the same, they backed him and now he must back them.  The issues discussed tend to be more economic, compromises less difficult, more money than it is on morality and religion.  These folks also knew that it is better to get something rather than nothing.  Again, he spent a lot of time listening, but that was okay because his mother told him a long time ago that if you are not sure what to say, don’t say anything. 

 

And last but not least, he traveled out of town to meet with the party people.  The message was delivered straight and blunt.  Mainly how much money he had to raise for the national party and scheduling speaker engagements to help other party members.  It was clearly pointed out to him that their continual support was based on his meeting his obligations.  There would be another election in 2 years.

 

The bad guys from the other side of the isle were still shooting at him and he sure didn’t want the good guys on his side to be shooting at him also.

 

Now Henry had been watching this process go on for years as he built his own company.  It was customer satisfaction, value given for value received, work, management, attention to detail, employee development, welfare, compliance with the law and profitability.  It worked and as the years went by he began to consider public service to satisfy his continual need to have a sense of self worth and give back.

 

When he went to bed last night, I heard him say, “I didn’t fully understand how difficult it was to get to our “Common Goal” in this jungle of competing self interest. When I ran my own company I could tell employees what to do.  I had a clear vision of what to do.  Now I’ve got to persuade my supporters at home and those other folks in Washington and I’ve got to do it under constant scrutiny and criticism.

 

But I’ll be okay.  We’ve been doing the same thing for 230 plus years and we’re doing pretty good.  We have the power to vote.