As somebody who works in government communications and political campaigns professionally I have very little interest in ever holding elected office on my own. Sure I vote and sometimes will volunteer to help out friends on a campaign but I have very little interest in politics myself.

For one I know how hard elected officials work. Being an elected official really is a 24-7 job, you are always on duty, always under the public eye, always have to be available to respond to emergency. Elected officials don’t get the weekends off, instead they must attend ribbon cuttings, fundraisers and community events. If attending a rubber chicken dinner then a Easter egg hunt with random bunch of children and parents that you don’t know sounds like a good time, then maybe you’re better cut out for it. I’d rather spend my weekends in the wilderness and working to build a better life for myself.

Elected officials are held accountable for every word they say, they are constantly working towards their re-election. They have to constantly fundraise as mass communications is incredibly expensive. They have to meet with unpleasant people, some because they come bearing campaign contributions, others just because they are constituents and it comes with the job.

Modern politicians have to be increasingly ideologically pure to avoid the constant primary threat, they have carefully study polling and demographic data to make sure the views they are exposing and the votes they are taking are representative of the voters who they represent. People think elected officials have a lot of autonomy in their decision making when the truth is their future is closely tied towards representing the people they serve. You can’t buck your constituents on important issues and expect to remain in office.

Even in office, during their term of office, elected officials are very constrainted in what they can or cannot do. Ethics rules are increasingly stringent, and institutional norms often put further constraints on public policy options beyond the limitations imposed by existing laws of federal and state government, along with the fairly iron clad and unchanging constitutional restrictions. It often takes decades of work and playing along with institutional norms to get to the place where one can implement major policy changes – and even those changes are constrained by existing laws imposed by other levels of government.

As such, public service has very little interest to me. I’d rather spend my time in the wilderness, and invest money towards a better tomorrow for myself. I know that the most effective form of voting is with one’s feet, especially on a personal level by moving to a community closer to one’s own views rather than trying to fight an uphill battle to change the system from within.