In our system, citizens select candidates to represent them in government at levels including local, county, state and federal. 

Almost all of those citizens expect those they elect to do their jobs and achieve results. 

The vast majority of citizens want all elected to follow their oath of office and be proper stewards of the Public Trust and their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

Proper Stewardship involves personal honesty, work ethic, objectivity, thrift, common sense and more.

Of course, the risky assumption here is that those traits initially exist  to give some benefit to doubt.

Before continuing, a note: We’ll focus examples on incumbent elected officials and candidates for federal office in Washington but this also applies to incumbents and candidates for office at every level of government as well as to all appointed government officials and all government employees.

Truth Shot 1: Incumbency seems to relentlessly whittle away at each trait — if the trait ever existed to begin with. 

Seemingly, as the behavioral traits of most incumbents weaken and dissolve, incumbent behavior increasingly violates the trust of the national constituency. Many candidates display the symptoms. No wonder the opinion of the federal Legislature is so low.

But no less the wonder is the contradiction that rarely does the individual voter’s opinion of their own congressional district representative or senator(s) syncronize with their low opinion of the Congress in general.

Truth Shot 2: The difficult reality is that in order to do that, an individual voter would have to consider that they may have been conned by certain candidates. Obviously, that is difficult for anyone to do. That includes me and each of you. Now, a warning: Beware of buying into the cynicism offered up by party insiders, manipulators and others using the phrase: “That’s politics.” Why? Three reasons:

•It is part of the willful lowering of the bar of behavior for candidates… and incumbents. •It is part of the willful lowering of constituent expectations. •It is part of the willful political con.

Lastly, let’s note that there are many definitions of politics. Each of those definitions, when historically researched, provide valuable insight into both the how and the why government has been organized in certain formulations down through the ages.

That said, a few years back a federal candidate told me his humorous definition of the word “politics”. His definition serves as a Truth Shot 3:

 “Politics, pronounced “poli - tics,” meaning “many blood-sucking insects.”

 You may initially smile as your eyes read the words that I heard (I smiled, too). But, the smile soon fades away as the proverbial truth, so often embedded in humor, sets realization free to take root in your thoughts.

 Such realization may explain the motivation behind the political con that is so willfully practiced these days by party insiders, too many incumbents as well as many candidates for offices at all levels of government.

Richard Olivastro is president of Olivastro Communications. Rich Olivastro@ gmail.com or by phone at 1-877-RichSpeaks.