Trump / FBI / Russians

There are state primary elections in Virginia today, and some candidates are running for the first time.
What motivates a person to run for public office? Is it mostly for selfish reasons like power, prestige, perks, checking off a bucket list item, getting one's ticket punched in pursuit of future goals...
or more altruistic reasons like honestly wanting to to help others or a frustration over the way things are being done/not being done in government and thinking one can make a difference?

 

Up here in blue country, it's power then money. They want the money, gotta get elected first. Power = money.

 

all of the above.

I've had friends run for local office before. Some ran for the power and the opportunity to hobnob with the upper crust, while others were frustrated with the system and thought they could make a difference.

 

A CBS News article from 7 years ago on why Congress is a millionaires' club:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-congress-a-millionaires-club/

 

If I ran for office it would be all about power. The power to crush one's enemies. Especially people who take up two parking spaces.

 

Don’t forget the MFers that leave their shopping carts.

 

Solid article cutting across the corrupt political aisle, good post DOS.

Article is from 2012.....each politician is now worth much, much more....how is it Pelosi is worth upwards of $70 mln? Until 1987, she worked in unpaid positions.
It is a professional politician.
Serious question: how did it get that kind of money ?

 

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!" - Conan on what is best in life.

 

Two years in office, she became the eighth-largest recipient of PAC money according to the Post, receiving over half a million dollars. At one point, Pelosi served as auctioneer at a celebrity auction, literally selling off access to party bigwigs to the highest bidder.

 

The decade also offered the first hint of what would become a theme in Pelosi’s career: the intersection of her private wealth and her political work. She was singled out in a Wall Street Journal report in 1994 scrutinizing lawmakers’ investments in IPOs, which pointed out that Pelosi’s husband had made a killing off a purchase of shares in computer software company Gupta. While several other lawmakers ended the practice in the ensuing controversy — the concern was that the IPOs, reserved by brokers for their most favored clients, were being laid open to lawmakers as a form of influence — Pelosi’s husband continued buying and selling IPO stocks for years. It would land her in substantially hotter water years later.

 

Pelosi ousted the Democratic member of the FEC most devoted to enforcing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, replacing him with a labor lawyer who had worked to block the law. Two years later, in 2005, she personally lobbied the FEC to neuter part of the law and allow politicians to raise unlimited amounts of money for groups campaigning for ballot measures, going against the advice of its own lawyer.

What required this extraordinary step? Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the Republican governor of California, was pushing a ballot measure that would have taken the task of redistricting out of the hands of the Democrat-controlled legislature and put it into the hands of a panel of retired judges. In other words, Pelosi helped weakened campaign finance laws to make sure Democrats could keep gerrymandering the state.

The whole episode made a mockery of her incessant “culture of corruption” attack line against the GOP.

 

In 2008, just as a bill aimed at limiting swipe fees on credit cards was making its way through the House, and just as Visa embarked on a massive lobbying and influence campaign to sway Pelosi against such legislation, her husband got a call from his broker inviting him to Visa’s exclusive IPO, which was closed to the public. Pelosi bought 5,000 shares at $44 each, whose value jumped by $20 two days later. Meanwhile, she chose not to bring the bill to the floor before Congress adjourned (a similar bill did eventually pass after originating in the Senate, however). Republicans would later try to pass a so-called “Pelosi provision,” barring lawmakers from using their office to access IPOs.