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Demystifying Congress

A collection of 38 issues

One Way to Get a Politician to Yes

Let’s kick today off with a (not trick) question: What gets politicians elected? Perhaps you’re thinking lots of moolah, special interests, really good hair, social media smarts, doing many, many very, very long podcasts. And sure, those can all have impact. But they are strategies; they are how

An Unsung Factor that Gets Politicians Re-Elected

It was personal to me, my friend said over lunch one day. When I called the Senator’s office for help, they didn’t ask my party or who I voted for. They just asked the need-to-know questions and then got to work trying to get my family home from

Are Your Politicians Show Ponies or Work Horses?

There is an old Sufi teaching story that goes like this: "You think that because you understand ‘one' that you must therefore understand ‘two' because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and.'" The ancient Sufis really presaged how

A Key Democracy Secret Hiding in Political Ads

One evening during the Olympics, a fascinating political ad came on that I want you to know all about. Because this ad, like so many, banks on people knowing diddly squat about policymaking. Clearly, this ad did not account for Policy is for Lovers readers! Who the ad is about

Useful Things to Know About Our Politicians

When Lyndon Johnson first became a Senator, he spent hours sitting in the Senate chamber watching the floor action. The Texan – who would go on to become one of history’s most powerful Senate Majority Leaders, who would muscle through the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, the creation

The Secret Sauce to Changing Policy

While Michigan Congressman John Dingell might not be a big name in most households, his work touched nearly every person in this country. The Dearborn-area legislator got some of the most high impact legislation of the late 20th and early 21st century across the finish line, including Medicare, the Clean

One Question that Explains Most of Politics

I once read that a good story starts from one of two driving questions: Why is this happening? One Hundred Years of Solitude kicks off with Colonel Aureliano Buendía standing before a firing squad. We've got to know why. Why isn't this happening? The play Waiting

How to Shape a Politician's Thinking

It is true that things are pretty grim out there. It's also true that one guaranteed way to make them worse is if we all walk off the field. So should this note find you hiding way down under the covers, I get it; we're allowed

What To Do About Congress, In Three Steps

Let's say you're not well pleased about what's been shaking out in Congress. And let's say you want to do something about it. What should you do? First: Focus on where you have influence I might be piss and vinegar about the

A Powerful Approach to News Consumption

Every day, millions upon billions upon maybe trillions of words are published (and herein are 600 more - just doing my part). If each word were a water droplet, we're getting Niagara Falls rained on us all the time. And mighty though we are, we aren't