“All Politics is Local”

“All Politics is Local” Tip O’Neill

All questions you ask a candidate must have local affections without forgetting that one day the same person might be your national official or will be a member of your local party structure thus having access to your federal elected official.

Questions presented to a candidate for endorsement for a local office must include a series of question, that are part of the “all” even if they are out of he present scope or situations that the candidate will confront but affect all of us in all subjects from local to national level.
All interview processes must imagine your town library council member running for Congress in the not long future or have a voice at the local party level politics, that might influence the federal elected official.

What you ask today might be useful in the future.

For example the most forgotten questions are budget questions, when the issue most affecting us in our everyday day lives is the federal and local budgets.
This kind of question line gets asked when the situation is so bad that it makes them irrelevant.
At the point if which the average candidate gets asked relevant commitments and questions usually it is too late.

If the tendency is to ask a candidate if they support this war of that war, it will be more apropos to ask if the candidate will be an unbiased supporter of increase on military personnel salaries by 50% or more and introduce legislation linked to pentagon budget cuts. As counter intuitive as it might seem, it indicates one single purpose, if the civilians plan to send a military person to war they must pay fair salaries, specially the support for above average salaries of highest paid private mercenaries.
In parallel include support for legislation that, if the reserves are going to be called to an arm conflict the amount of pay must be fully replaced and a 50% increase salary for active duty while in armed conflict participation.
Although, this is not an anti-war position it is a position that reduces the easy of action to send soldiers to war and demand negotiations for peace due to reduced budgets.

For example most housing subsidies are driven to simple pay for housing via rental agreements, but not towards ownership via subsidies, candidate positioning and questions in the direction of subsidized ownership while demanding for better accommodations for the people in need. In housing is more apropos to demand ownership than to demanding for support dilapidated rental units.

A candidate will have to answer support for budget question in which there is not increase of taxes but an increase on educations and health coverage which is more progressive than tax increases. The Guns and Butter choices, when too extreme at local level go in favor of butter, call it local tax cuts.

The importance of this dialogue is to increase the level of questioning before throwing the towel in one direction based on partisan views. Needs of people are no partisan.
Most people are independent and most people need education in the subjects of need.
We all constantly need to find a common ground on our own personal needs, our town, our national needs and our international needs.
Most of the ignorance on subjects of need are driven by jingle style phrases with empty value, and driven to support idiocy and disrupt understanding and dialogue of issues.