Keep your eye on the ball...

Imagine you are sent into a new community with an assignment that requires effecting political change. How would you do it? You don't have alot of time, you don't know anyone in the community, you have very little assets to work with...

What you have to do requires the support of local politicians who didn't know you from Adam.

Suppose that you came in, volunteered on their campaigns, made yourself invaluable.

Let's say you took a look at the political landscape, and see that certain candidates in a race are more likely to be supportive of your agenda than others, so you volunteer to help the one who appears most favorable. It's a seat-of-the-pants plan, figure it out as you go, seize the opportunities as they arise...

As you work to get people elected, they introduce you to others in the community, to the people behind the scenes, to the power brokers, to the movers and shakers, and to the people with money.

You work hard to ingratiate yourself with them. You learn your way around, who's who, what works and what doesn't. Maybe you even have a team that came with you. Your willingness to get the gruntwork done, along with energy and enthusiasm that is the most exciting thing on the political scene in years pays off. You are welcomed, and crowned a kingmaker.

Your political capital grows.

Nobody asks why you are doing this, if you have an agenda. Any idle questions are easily turned away with a bland answer. No one looks deeper. People turn their eyes idly away and go back to their lives.

Their disinterest and apathy frustrates you, though, too, you need them to stay committed, while they are tired of the game.

You have to keep them motivated.

So you stir the pot constantly, you latch onto any cause celeb that arises. Along the way, more and more politicians are indebted to you.

The plan works to a degree, but there are problems... You realize that some of your candidates are unsuccessful because they lack experience and expertise. Along the way, you find that some of the politicians you have helped have minds of their own, won't do what you tell them to do. And some of your successfully placed candidates require constant babysitting.

You realize that you still need a majority vote. Your goal is not as easy to realize as you thought.

But you are patient. You set up a another plan to fill the pipeline with your people, to start them in lesser positions, like school boards, and community water boards, knowing that you can groom them to run for the higher office, and they will have a resume to boost them along.

You tap into community groups, pump them up, help them organize, telling them how great they are, never revealing your true purpose. You are careful to set up these groups to run autonomously so that you can dedicate your energy elsewhere. None of them suspect what you are really about. No one knows if you are here on a mission, if you are being paid, or if you are just an "involved" citizen.

Along the way, you make some enemies, and you also find that you have let your success go to your head. You also give in to the urge to attack your primary foes, and your politics begin to revolve around that.

It was a plan that was intended to be accomplished quickly. It took longer than you thought. There were more roadblocks than you anticipated.

Where once you were an unknown quantity, now you are being examined under a microscope. You don't like it, but you have to endure it. Because the cause is everything.