Column: Politicians are people, too

By Rachel Kaufman
March 11, 2008

Politicians are people, too. Kind of. Sort of. I mean, sometimes we remember that, but usually we don’t. They might not be good people per se, but regardless, they are Homo sapiens. Deal with it. We usually hold politicians to a higher standard than us “normal” folk, which isn’t a bad thing, but their human-like qualities often get lost in translation (that’s a euphemism for the media sucking).

For example, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh at President George Bush when he misspeaks. Sometimes Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., does, too. Sometimes Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., stumbles a little. Sometimes Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., speechwriters make typos; God forbid he ever misspeak. Not everyone in the world is equipped with Microsoft Word and T9 predictive text to spell out everything just so.

But one thing I didn’t really think about before living among the elite leaders in Washington was just how exhausting their lives are. I mean, as an unemployed college student, I think my life is exhausting as well, but this is a different kind of exhaustion.

These aren’t nine-to-five jobs. These aren’t even seven-to-seven jobs. Many of the congressmen and congresswomen and senators travel to their respective states on the weekend, and live in D.C. while Congress is in session during the week. One exception is Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who makes the commute from his home in Delaware every day.

Politicians are away from their families for most of the year, don’t have stable office hours, are dealt a constantly shifting staff and often multiple offices to manage. On top of that, they aren’t paid millions of dollars as we expect people of their stature to be paid. According to About.com, a rank-in-file member of Congress makes $169,300 a year. This is by no means poverty — I think I would be very comfortable with this amount — but when you think of all the traveling, the maintenance of two households, plus the cost of living in D.C, let’s just say they probably don’t drive around in Ferraris and have butlers named Jeeves to manage all the small stuff. Aside from that, think of the therapy and counseling costs they need from dealing with their constituents and each other. So at the day’s end, these guys are probably working with the same disposable income as a disgruntled journalist. OK, that was a joke. The homeless man on the street corner has more of a disposable income than we do.

But in all honesty, politicians, as smarmy and corrupt as they are, have one of the most time-consuming jobs out there. I’m a big fan of teachers, perhaps because one raised me, so I’ve heard about exhausting jobs through the grapevine. But not having set hours, a set location or really anyone who agrees 100 percent with you, plus the media breathing down your neck and unhappy constituents constantly calling one of your offices has got to get on your nerves at least a little. Yep, this is the ugly side of politics.

Think about how you would act if you were running on two hours of sleep every other day the next time one of these perfect politicians stumbles, stutters or tap dances while waiting for his buddy to arrive.

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Column: Politicians are people, too

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