Granados Column: What's your political type?

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell is much better at staying on message than I am.

Granted, I can put a few words together, but my thoughts often meander.

McDonnell on the other hand can take any question or topic and steer it in the direction of what he wants to discuss.

My observation is not a criticism; it’s an observation. He is a good politician.

That’s one thing I noticed while interviewing him Wednesday in front of some live Web viewers. I will keep the rest of my thoughts to myself until the Editorial Board decides on its endorsements.

Election season has become my favorite time of year since I started as editorial page editor of the News & Messenger.

Starting in late summer and continuing into fall, we try to meet with all candidates who represent our readership and get a feel for them as people and an idea of what they stand for.

Of course, in any particular year, we get a variety of political types.

We get the professionals, like McDonnell, who have been doing this a long time and know how to control and display their image well.

We get the, let us call them, amateur professionals — these are the ones that have their message down pat but don’t have quite the polish and experience of a true, professional politician.

Then we have the everyman, or woman. These are just the ordinary people, without a lot of political experience, who are getting in the game because of an interest in service or a desire to change specific
issues that are affecting them.

Of these, we have two subtypes: the prepared and the unprepared.

The words should say it all, but let me elaborate.

The prepared are, for lack of a clearer word, prepared. They know the issues, know what they want to do and know how they are going to do it.

The unprepared are the opposite. They just don’t know . . . much of anything. Those interviews are uncomfortable.

There was even one year when we interviewed someone that I thought might have been evil. We didn’t endorse the person and he or she didn’t win office, fortunately. I haven’t heard much from the person
since.

Of course, for the purposes of making an endorsement, my perceptions of badness were set aside in favor of an analysis of what the person said, which was not particularly compelling or well thought out
anyway.

So, these are some of the political types I have encountered. I’m certain there are more, and I have no doubt that I will encounter new ones, but this has been my experience thus far at the News &
Messenger.

My knowledge of political type merged with some inner understanding of the political mindset when I interviewed McDonnell on camera; I got some small idea of the level of self awareness he and other
politicians must practice.

Knowing that I might be scrutinized by numerous viewers, I was intensely aware of how I should behave, sit and react. My ordinary habits had to be suppressed, and I had to monitor what I was saying to
ensure that nothing inappropriate came out of my mouth. Frankly, I didn’t like it. I prefer the distance of the written word to the immediacy of camera.

But imagining the stress and practice that comes with being a politician, I have gained a newfound respect for the position.

Once someone decides to try for public life, he or she all of a sudden ceases being of themselves and becomes of the people. That is to say that the person’s messages and mannerisms must be aimed
to the people and constructed in such a way as to appeal to the people. In a very real sense, once someone decides to become a politician, he or she becomes a different person.

That is a scary thought for me, but a sacrifice that politicians in the modern era must make in order to be of service to their fellow men and women.

Unfortunately, for we people, the political persona sometimes ends up coming across as fake, and we decry it. But just think how quick we would be to jump on one of these people if he or she said the
wrong thing, made the wrong face or did anything else that deviated from the publicly recognized, if not discussed, rules of political behavior.

Just think of George Allen, Howard Dean and a slew of other political hopefuls brought down by single moments where their brains or emotions took precedence over their political sense.

We may call politicians fake, but we don’t forgive them for being real.

Editorial Page Editor Alex Granados can be reached at 703-878-8069 or agranados@insidenova.com.