Career Management Monday, October 20, 2008

Part of career management is realizing that government has a significant impact on your ability to work. Whether it is balancing the government budget, enabling a financial meltdown, changing your rights as an individual, or going off to war, government creates the rules (Cube Rules, if you will) around how we work.

The way most of us engage in government is through voting. And, in the United States, early voting is underway in many states, including my home state of Washington.

Too often, too many of us simply don’t vote according to our own self-interest. For example, we vote for a person in a party based on the reputation of the party and not what happens when the party is in power. We vote for the myth of the person rather than looking at the person and the policies.

I’d like to urge you to not only vote, but to also vote in your own self-interest. What follows is my own self-interest. You don’t have to agree with the analysis and I’m happy with whoever you vote for as long as you are doing it based on your own self-interest.

President

With the Cube Rules mission of supporting the careers of knowledge workers, it should come as no surprise where my self-interests lie. I want a strong economy and a decrease in the health insurance risk we take if we lose our jobs. I want a strong financial future and stop the war that has already taken the life of my former stepson. I want a President who recommends wisely for the Supreme Court when there are openings. All of these interests support people who work in cubes to be better able to manage their own careers. These interests help us build up our finances. These interests make it easier for us to move between jobs and keep the risk of the recession down – once the one we are in is over.

It should therefore not be surprising that I voted in my early voting state for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. These people proclaim the policies that are closest to my own self-interest.

I don’t think John McCain or (especially) Sarah Palin come remotely close to matching my self-interests. From even more tax cuts to the wealthy to continuing the war in Iraq to taxing health insurance benefits of companies (for the first time ever), there is no distance between what these people want compared with the disaster of the last eight years.

And, from an emotional maturity level, clearly John McCain is NOT about governing the country; he is simply about doing anything to win an election. From putting his campaign on a pretend hold to race to the rescue of Wall Street, to selecting Palin to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, to bullying other countries as the first choice in foreign relations, to how he has run his campaign, to the outright lying, there is no doubt in my mind that what we would end with is a more dangerous Presidency than the one we already have. And it wouldn’t be in my interest.

Usually, we get to choose between the lesser of two evils. For the first time since I have started voting (my first Presidential vote was…Richard Nixon…), I am drawn to the Barrack’s candidacy and would vote for him for that alone. But John McCain’s performance review makes this an easy choice.

House of Representatives

I live in the most hotly contested House of Representative race in the country: the Washington 8^th district. Here, Darcy Burner is working to unseat Dave Reichert, the two-term incumbent Republican who has voted with George Bush more than John McCain. Now, Reichert is not a terrible person, but neither is he effective for his district. And in voting for my self-interest, why would I vote for someone who enabled everything George Bush did the last eight years and would continue to do so in a John McCain administration?

Darcy was not only against the Iraq war, she went out and created the “Responsible Plan to End the Iraq War,” working with a broad coalition of military and social leaders to develop the plan. This plan has been endorsed by many other representatives running for the House who intend to use it when elected to end the Iraq War.

As well, she has a concrete economic plan that addresses who we are in the district. Darcy puts in the thinking to have mind over chatter. The local papers have endorsed Reichert; they think four years in Congress makes him more “experienced.” Thinking through the issues and advocating them, apparently, doesn’t count for much. I’ll vote for Darcy because she better represents my self-interest.

Too many people vote one way on the top of the ticket and then let their closest federal representative off the hook for having views that don’t match their own simply because they have been in Congress. When some 90% of incumbents make a reelection in the House, it simply means people are not paying attention to what their representative has done. In this election, we need to pay attention to the entire ticket.

Conclusion

In my life, I have not seen a more important election where the choice between the candidates is clearer. As I said, I’m not asking you to agree with me. All I am asking is to sit down and look at your self-interest, lay out the positions and make your choice. And vote early. There will be high participation in this election; perhaps a historic high. So make your vote count. Have it match your self-interest.