The Making of a Congressman I

In a quote attributed to Bismarck, "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." Well, fair enough, but how about watching the making of one who makes the laws?

We are honored this next Member Monday (1/8) to welcome Mark Williams, candidate for the second Congressional District district seat (includes Boulder County), the one vacated by Jared Polis who, in turn, is running for the governorship. The winner of the democratic primary to be held this June will most assuredly win the seat in November.

The session is designed for us armchair every"men" to explore what it's really like to run for national office. Don't confuse Mark with Everyman, however. Mark has been with us twice before, once to take us through the training, the challenges, and the actual combat experience of an F-15 pilot who flew in the first sortie of the Iraq war. Red Baron then morphed into Buddha (the subject of a previous Member Monday) as this retired pilot later attended Naropa and developed mindfulness training programs for the civilian world. It was a transformation truly to behold.

And so it would be with this next act. Mark's campaign headquarters is housed at the Highland City Club, thus providing us with the perfect place from which to witness the realities of the political process. Let us simply set the stage at this first Member Monday session of the year by exploring with Mark the reasons he decided to run, the challenges he sees ahead, and his feelings about the prospect of being a public persona. Such a session will at the very least provide us with our own vicarious thrill as we imagine ourselves -- being, of course, of equally pure of body, mind and spirit -- at the starting block.

Then, ideally, we shall re-engage with Mark as the campaign unfolds towards the June primary. What, then, have become the (non-confidential) unexpected hurdles, compromises, and changed ideals? The beauty in all this is we can better understand the realities of hardball politics. All of us will then be in a much better position to appreciate what it must be like to make sausages.