Stegall - Faults & All

Faults and All

By Mike Stegall

Republican candidate for Darke County Commissioner

A couple of months ago I was invited to attend a seminar in Dayton on how to be a successful politician.  They were going to tell me how to best get my message across, how to present myself, how to say something without saying anything, and a host of other “suggestions” to make each candidate successful.  I chose not to go.

Not because I think I am some super politician or anything like that, but it just seemed to hit me wrong.  Maybe I am all wet here, but I believe that seminars like this are what are wrong with politics.  I am sure that they can make you a better politician, but is that what we all want?  I don’t.  Politicians are what we are getting now, and that isn’t working out too well now is it? 

I want to see our elected officials as they are, not polished and primped and elevated into something they are not.  I think people deserve to see us, faults and all, as we truly are.  If we can’t get our message out by ourselves, then how can we possibly hope to govern?

If I can’t tell you how I am going to vote in simple language, how will you know who I am? If you meet me on the street or call me on the phone with a question, you don’t want a stock political answer, you want my answer. I want you to see me not as a slick politician,(I really hate that word!) but as an elected official who is just like you.  I may not be as polished as some like, nor does my personality fit with everyone.  That’s okay.  This is me, and that is what you are going to get.

If all politicians would just be themselves, we would all be better off.  It seems now that you have to be “packaged” in order to get elected.  Packaged is what we have been getting for too long now.  We really don’t know these people, do we? The farther up the political ladder we go, the more our “people” think we need to change in order to be elected.  That’s a real problem for me.  I want to know who I am voting for, not some made up hack that is nothing like he is portrayed. 

Example?   I give you John Edwards!  This guy was nothing like he was portrayed by his people and the media. He was a shyster who his “people” knew was a shyster, but they allowed him to go on, encouraged him actually to fool everyone because they wanted that power he would get as President.   If John Edwards would have been himself, he would never have been elected to anything, and yet his “packaging” got him within a whisker of the presidency!  That’s just scary and wrong. 

I write these papers so hopefully, you will get to know me better. The punctuation may be wrong, and some words may be misspelled, but I am letting you in on what I believe. I am trying to let all of Darke County see who I am and what I believe.  This is what I am.  The things I write are what I believe. You may like it, you may not, and that’s fine with me.  I am just trying to give you a better look at me and let you have an insight as to how I will be as commissioner.  You deserve that.  You deserve to see me as I am, faults and all.