RS
EDITOR OF REDSTATE
Self-Awareness Matters
In politics, self-awareness matters. It does. When I was a political consultant, I told my clients my first two rules. The first was to know when you were in the minority, even when you thought you were right. The second was to know yourself as others see you.
Self-awareness matters.
Were I to run for the Senate, it would be a terribly nasty campaign. It’d actually be really awesome, but it’d be really nasty. I have a seven year old, a soon to be four year old, and a wife who does not like being anywhere near a stage. I’m not putting my family through that when the best outcome would mean a sizable pay cut and being away from my kids and wife all the time huddled in a pit of vipers often surrounded by too many who viewed me as a useful instrument to their own advancement.
I appreciate all the support. I really do. In the past week I’ve learned who real friends are and are not. It has been eye opening. I had been all along very, very dismissive of running. But given the efforts of several and the financial pledges of support, I figured I should actually take the time to seriously and prayerfully consider it out of respect for those who asked and offered to help.
I don’t understand these people who take a bunch of time publicly wringing hands over these things. A week of thinking about it was enough.
I’ve refrained from writing about this here the entire time because I know, as the Hotline already did despite not a byte wasted on this here, people would say it was just some effort of self promotion. Were I to run, the campaign would be about me and not about ideas. My campaign would be a lightning rod for both sides and a distraction, consuming resources on both sides that are better spent elsewhere. I think in a state like Georgia it would play to my advantage, but it would not advance the ideas I care about through the election, just me.
In December of 2006 my wife lay dying. She had six months to live. We talked in ways we never talked before about what it would be like when she was gone. She said she had seen me grow in my role at RedState as a catapult, launching others into the arena to do the fighting while I stood on the outside assisting and fighting. My role is that of the catapult still. I’ve been in the arena. I’m meant to be on the outside helping. I am more useful to the ideas I believe in and the cause I love being where I am. I have a television presence, a well listened to radio show on the largest talk radio station in the nation, and RedState itself.
Luckily, my wife got a reprieve. She had been misdiagnosed. But I won’t put her or my family through something like that when I don’t even view it as my calling.
So thank you to so many of you for so much support. We will find someone to catapult into the arena. It just won’t be me. I’ll instead still be standing here to keep the bridge with thee.
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