A career in politics

A wonderful explanation of how people rise in politics from Cranky Chicks with Guns:

Joe Blow the Asshole
Joe Blow � the good ol� country boy from right here in The Sticks � is running for dog catcher. Somebody has to do the job, after all, and Mr. Blow figures that, since nobody else bothered to run against the current guy, he might as well give it a shot.

It turns out that the incumbent doesn�t want to be dog catcher anymore anyway; there�s a position on the town council that�s coming open this cycle and he�d like to have a few more responsibilities in The Sticks. He doesn�t even really care about dogs one way or the other anyway, to be honest, but the position was a good start. The rub here is that the incumbent can�t run for the board seat while also running for reelection as dog catcher, so he has to make a choice. He opts to go for the council position.

Joe Blow, running unopposed, gets the job; half of the few people in The Sticks who bothered showing up on Election Day didn�t even know who he was, but that didn�t matter because his name was the only one on the ballot. As long as there aren�t large packs of strays destroying the city park and overrunning peoples� neighborhoods, few people really give a crap about that part of the local government.

For the next four years, Joe Blow is a happy dog catcher. When he isn�t at work or spending time with the family, he�s in the county�s truck, rounding up stray dogs and taking them to the shelter.

Before the next election cycle, one of the council members dies of old age. Joe thinks about this while he�s having his morning constitutional; that job will give Joe the opportunity to do more things for the stray dogs in his community. If he�s on the board, he can help create new ordinances that will make life better; one idea is that, if every citizen is required to have his or her dog microchipped regardless of how that canine buddy was added to the family, there will be fewer problems when one of those pets turns up on the street.

This time, Joe has to actually fight because two other people are running for that town-council seat. He doesn�t have a hard time beating them, though, because he constantly points to how great a job he�s doing as dog catcher. The few people in The Sticks who actually pay attention to the debates and town-hall meetings, which take place in a mostly-empty City Hall, agree that Joe�s been a great dog catcher and will surely do even-greater things on the council. Besides, the other two candidates are younger than most of the people who bother going out and voting and, well, we can�t trust those young�uns. Joe Blow�s not tottering along on a walker yet, but he�s proven himself, unlike those two.

Read the rest -- spot on...