This weekend my good friend, Jon Bray, came down to Madison to visit. It was nice, considering I don’t get to see him all that often. And as usual, politics and our collective futures came up as a subject of discussion among Jon, Steve, and myself. We’re all three a year away from graduating, and for Steve and I, a good number of our friends have already graduated and begun to move on to the real world. Needless to say, the pressure of trying to figure out what to do in the real world has started to take effect.
I am trying to seriously consider whether or not my long-term plan of getting a JD is a great plan for the time being or even the right one. What makes such discussions particularly hard, like a lot of poor policy kritiks, is that I am hard pressed to find an alternative. On the other hand, some part of me can’t help but think that because I’ve been going to school for so long that I must naturally continue going to school over options that might make better sense for what I want to do with my life. For instance, maybe I should not go to law school after next year, and instead go to run a political campaign. Or maybe do something else. Hell, I’ve said for along time that if my first two preferred careers (law and politics) do not pan out, that according with the old saying (those who can’t, teach) that I’d become a teacher. I have a nagging suspicion that says I shouldn’t try to mess around doing what I really want to do and that I should just pursue education instead. After all, I was voted most likely to be the next principal of North High among my class. (I was also voted most likely to host a talk show). And then, there’s this other idea that maybe all of the above is totally wrong, and that I should pursue a career in, I don’t know, broadcast journalism. Dave Black of WSUM told me, when I was doing training to be on air, (which I never was, even though I finished the training) that I had a “good rap.†Anywho; its hard to think about because I think and I think about all of the prospects, and I never come to a definite conclusion.
However, Jon and I have been long interested in politics. From when I beat Jon in our Boy Scout Patrol’s election for Patrol leader with the time honored “I’ll vote for you, if you vote for me†trick to when Steve and I set Jon up to run for Senior Class President (which, although he won the popular vote and had a legitimate first amendment case against the School District, he still lost) to the week that we spent in Ripon for Badger Boys State, it has always seemed that we’d both end up in politics some how. And I cannot deny that a political career would be my first choice, if I were offered that choice. But I just don’t think that’s going to happen. And my ability to realize this, while depressing, is also, ironically, the talent that I think would make me successful in managing political campaigns or working as a speechwriter.
To make this depression more concrete: I applied for an internship with the Lt. Governor awhile back and I wasn’t even offered an interview. Apparently working on two statewide Wisconsin campaigns and coaching two state champion forensics teams, is not enough for one to be interviewed for an internship with the assistant communication director to the Lt. Governor.
My Dad joked a few weekends ago that the next time he sees State Senator Leibham in a run in Sheboygan County that he’d ask me for a job/internship. (Leibham is a republican. And a particularly evil one. e.g. His campaign vans have pictures of Joe with children. Joe isn’t married and doesn’t even have any kids. Oh he has plenty of nephews and nieces, but no kids of his own or a wife either.) Dad, like Alissa’s roommate, didn’t see the inherent problem: I won’t work for republicans.
The key difference though between Jon and me now, is that he lives in D.C. and that I’m stuck in Wisconsin. And DC has accordingly presented Jon with a significantly higher amount of opportunity than Wisconsin has provided me. While I was a lowly intern on Feingold’s Re-election campaign, he was an intern for the entire DSCC, reviewing ads for all of the contested senatorial campaigns.
Moreover, I’m simply not connected. I am a first generation college student and I am ridiculously middle-class. My father still works in the same warehouse he has for the last 25 years. And my mother is doing the same type of job she has for over 10 years. I have neither money, nor name recognition. I don’t have the world’s most expensive education; I attended a public high school and am attending a public university. And I don’t have great social connections either. I pretty much lack any quality that might make people good at networking, and thus know relatively few people in politics. But I do know Jon Bray! (And as Mr. Johnson and Scheffler will readily tell anyone who’s listening; I’m not that great at making friends; especially fellow coaches in forensics and debate)
And to magnify the problem in my head, I sense a perceived tension between committing to a political career and any association with forensics and debate. It seems to me, that I would have to give up the one activity that has given me the best experiences and the best friends of my life, not to mention the activity that has allowed me to eat for the last three years, in order to be involved in politics.
As I said before, I have no definite conclusion; just competing analysis with no end. My brain is mush, and I’m open to suggestions if you got them
