Graduation Speech, 2001 (archives)

(Graduating with a Masters Degree in Political Management from George Washington University in 2000, I was asked to return the following year and give the valedictory speech. Because final grades are not processed by the time of graduation, the class valedictorian returns the following year to speak. Whatever, the point is this was the text of my delivered speech. A few points: First, I followed invited graduation speaker Donna Brazile at the podium ( I might more generously describe her speech as "remarks", or less generously describe them as "ramblings."). Second, I was horribly hungover when I gave the speech (but not drunk when I wrote it). Third, I think the core message still has resonance several years later.)

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Dean Arterton, Faculty, Honored Guests, Fellow Students…

As far as I can tell, the traditional valedictory speech is supposed to contain one or more of the following elements:

1) A recognition of our shared hardships as we struggled to reach this point, designed to engender a sense of community

2) A pithy saying or bit of wisdom that we are supposed to remember, apply and quote often as we venture out into the real world.

3) A challenge or a charge to take our skills and our passion and use them to serve some greater good. Mom, apple pie, democracy, and so forth.

Well, forget it. I couldn’t really think of any of those things.

The only thing I could think of is a warning. And that warning is that we are all now in serious danger of “going Washington.”

Let me review some of the warning signs that you may be “going Washington”:

Ø If you’ve ever set your VCR to tape Meet The Press. Even worse, if you’ve saved that tape for your library.

Ø If one of the preset stations in your car stereo is C-SPAN radio.

Ø If you know that the Cook Report is not a culinary magazine.

Ø And finally, if you’ve earned a Masters Degree in Political Management

In a few moments, we’ll all be clutching those diplomas that will prove to our friends and relatives here and back home that we have completely lost touch with reality.

“So, a Masters Degree in Political Management. Ohhhhh.” they say. “So, what is it you do exactly?”

And that is a big problem, because for the most part, we are taking jobs that are nearly indescribable to someone who doesn’t live inside the Beltway. By the way, using phrases like “inside the Beltway” is another sign of “going Washington.”

It will come as a complete shock to our parents and grandparents that our Representatives and Senators do not personally respond to constituent mail, but in fact each has a team of people our age doing all the writing.

If you tell your aunts and uncles that you work in grassroots, they’ll probably think you’re a landscaper and ask you what to do about the dandelions in their yard.

And more than once have I told someone that I am a pollster, only to have them think I said upholsterer and ask me how much it costs to refurbish a loveseat or sofa.

I’ve also had to resort to explaining my job by saying, “Well do you remember that episode of the West Wing…?”

That’s another sign of “going Washington”.

Another big problem about “going Washington” is that we are liable to fall for the grand illusion that we are important people. While endless self-promotion seems to be a prerequisite for career advancement in Washington, it can leave each of us with an inflated sense of our own importance that even further erodes our ability to communicate with people from the outside world.

Very few of us will ever actually be the person running for office, and fewer still will actually ever cast that deciding vote on the House floor.

The cliché goes that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. What we should keep in mind I think is that we’re the ugly people working behind the scenes.

So when someone asks us what we do, the way around both problems is simply to say, “I help democracy work, but just a little bit.”

Then there is the other side of the coin. When we invest so much of our time and energy into a cause, an issue, or a person, we run the risk of not just being disappointed but being completely disillusioned.

We are too talented, too educated, and still far too young to have our skills go to waste because we gambled away our mental health on a long-shot horse that pulled-up lame.

We owe it to our causes, our issues, and our clients, candidates and bosses, not to mention ourselves, to avoid despair.

Finally, I would warn us all against hating the opposition. Whatever our partisanship, hatred not only coarsens our political culture, but from a real strategic standpoint, hatred also makes us underestimate our opposition.

I am a Republican, but I have taken steps to never again underestimate a Democrat. I married one. She is also a graduate of the GSPM. Come to think of it, that may be another warning sign of “going Washington.”

All of these factors: inexplicability, egomania, disillusionment, and hatred undermine our chosen profession.

The fact is that our chosen profession is an odd one. We are willfully entering another dimension here, a professional Twilight Zone.

We won’t have normal jobs. We won’t work normal hours. We won’t lead normal lives.

So why are we doing this again?

I can’t answer that for anyone but myself, because I bet there are as many reasons as there are people working in politics.

But if it is worth anything to any of you, I chose politics because I agree with Aristotle that the end of politics is the human good, and attaining that good for everyone is a pursuit both noble and divine.

We can all be proud of what we do. We are now officially skilled political professionals, and any campaign, organization or office will be fortunate to have us on the team.

And despite being misunderstood and maligned, maybe under-appreciated and almost certainly underpaid, we do help democracy work every day, but just a little bit.

Congratulations and good luck to us all.