Tips for Advocates: Remember this truth as the Presidential Campaign Warms Up

This week, in the category of “worst kept secrets, two prominent Republicans will have announced their candidacies for the 2024 Presidential primary. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida will officially enter the fray after months of will they-won’t they speculation. And like the many others considering the same move, they’re trying to carve out their own identity in what promises to be an expansive field – and a field aiming to overcome the ~35% bloc of GOP voters who reportedly support the return of former President Donald Trump as the party’s standard bearer.

Predictably, those of us in the field are already getting questions from friends and neighbors about what we think will happen. Frankly, anyone who says anything other than “I haven’t the foggiest” at this stage is a shyster. Handle them with care.

But I understand the urge to want to feel ‘in the know.’ Each of us, to some degree, wants to feel competent – and thus confident – when it comes to our public duties. It’s perfectly natural to feel this need to have authority around the water cooler. But for those of us in and around professional politics, we have to brace for the long haul over the next year and into the general election to follow. Because presidential politics throws partisanship into high gear.

And that drains the system.

Money. Vigor. Hype. Volunteers. Presidential races – even in the earliest stages of the primary fight like right now – suck all of the oxygen out of the room. It all gets a little bit harder. Because partisan talking points dominate the discourse, little room is left for folks to dive into the nitty-gritty aspects of our governance. Every issue, every topic becomes untouchable to some degree.

And it’s exhausting! Because of the tectonic shifts that can happen almost daily in a presidential competition, it can be hard to keep up with all the breaking news. That information overload causes a lot of issues for our limited mental bandwidth as private citizens. There’s just too much to filter. Because of that, we may unexpectedly find ourselves in a tenuous position: judging all the news, the actions of those in our circle, even the actions of our favorite brands through a litmus test curated by the partisan arguments of the moment.

This is a recipe for discontent and disengagement. It’s also the seed for the single most important lesson I’ve learned since quitting partisan politics: leaning into your issues, instead of partisan intrigue, will keep you in the fight.

Here’s what I mean a little more plainly: when we are willing to divorce ourselves from the identity formed by involvement in partisanship, we’re able to start seeing politics just a little differently. We’re able to step back, breathe, and gain a broader perspective. That new vantage point helps us avoid the motion sickness that comes with the frenetic activity of hyper-partisanship. That means staying power. That means an opportunity to endure in the fight when others are too fatigued to keep going. That, in and of itself, will give you more chances to win the day.

I’m not saying you have to walk away from your party identity. You have core beliefs. We all do. We need vehicles to carry those beliefs into the public debate – and political parties can carry quite a bit. But when we subvert our own identity, our own character and replace it with the fabrication of the political machine, we lose something. We lose ourselves. We lose our relationships. We lose our damn minds.

You know what I’m talking about. The caricatures of people that arise throughout a campaign. Meme after meme where individuals become the lasting image of rage, disappointment, even hatred. When we allow too much of our identity to be housed in that partisanship, we become those caricatures.

I will preach this for as long as I remain in the political arena. We owe it to ourselves and our causes to be better – and that takes a very personal commitment. A commitment to remembering that your political party is not a substitute for a personality – or your duty to think.

If you’re “in the ring” on an issue, fighting it out, this week’s announcements are your early warning signal about the partisanship coming our way. Find a way to distance yourself from it when working your issues. As hard as it may seem, consciously putting your partisan identity in the backseat will serve your issue. Doing so allows you the freedom to engage with those you’d otherwise write off. And over the next 18 months? That will be a breath of fresh air for decision makers.