What if We Asked the Hesitant Community Leaders to Run?

Eric Swalwell is Out; the Problem that Produced Him Isn’t.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I wouldn’t bet on Congressman Eric Swalwell for Governor of California. He was leading the Polymarket, but I noted the ongoing standoff with the FBI, now run by Kash Patel, that had been threatening to release details on the Chinese honeytrap he’d been caught in.

Turns out, the FBI didn’t have to release a thing.

After a series of stories detailing unwanted sexual advances on staffers and young women, and an allegation of rape, Swalwell is out of the race. I’m frankly happy he’s out. I hope he takes the issues raised seriously. This weekend he filmed a video where he denied allegations.

Congressman Eric Swalwell in a video released on social media denied allegations, before suspending his campaign for California Governor, and announcing he would resign from Congress.

The Swalwell story had me thinking deeply again about the kinds of people who run for office. And about the people in political circles, in both parties, who know things and just don’t say them.

One of the biggest issues we have in American politics right now is candidates themselves. The best among us don’t seem to be those running for office or driving changes we need or solutions. Time and again we are seeing flawed and troubling candidates seeking office. It’s corrosive.

There are longstanding rumors all over Washington. Blackmailable offenses. Open secrets. The rumors about the way Katie Porter, another California gubernatorial candidate, treats her staff are well-documented in those circles.

One of Swalwell’s earliest and most prominent endorsers was Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, one of Swalwell’s closest friends in Congress. Gallego publicly defended Swalwell on social media even after initial misconduct rumors emerged, writing “when you are in first place, is when they target you.” He ultimately retracted his endorsement when the reporting became impossible to ignore.

Gallego is himself being floated as a 2028 presidential contender, a man who walked out on his pregnant wife. Worth keeping in mind.

We don’t even need to wait a day between these types of scandals. Moments after Swalwell made his resignation announcement, Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales announced he was resigning, after previously admitting an affair with a staffer who died by suicide. He bailed with a House Ethics investigation pending.

All of it raises the same question. Why do we keep ending up here?

The Politics of the Jaded

I remember when politics felt like the most important thing in the world. I was in college during the 2000 Presidential contest, a student at the University of Kansas and I drove to Kansas City to see Al Gore on the trail, just to shake his hand. Still a student in 2004, I watched closely as John Kerry took the nomination, and as a loyal Democrat I rooted for him.

John Edwards was Kerry’s running mate. The man everyone said had the brightest future in Democratic politics. Edwards later proved them right about his ambition and wrong about everything else, conducting an affair with a campaign videographer while his wife battled terminal cancer, fathering a child he denied for years.

I dodged a bullet, never working for him. I threw myself into a gubernatorial office in Kansas, a gubernatorial campaign in Iowa, and then into Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

I’ll be honest: President Obama never let me down. Whether I agreed with every decision the administration made, he was a good leader. He asked hard questions. He openly admitted he wasn’t perfect, neither were any of us, but challenged us to do better. Working directly with him, I came away proud.

Despite my enthusiasm for the President, I got jaded in Washington, maybe even before I even arrived in Washington, because so many people in politics are not there for the greater good. They’re there for themselves. The profession attracts the power-hungry and the petty in alarming numbers.

I still remember overhearing a conversation between a bag man and an advance staffer—the people whose job is literally to carry things for the candidate—talking about how they were going to “rule the world.” I thought, thank God neither of you will be ruling anything.

These days I watch a President who compares himself to Christ and picks fights with the Pope. A man whose history with Jeffrey Epstein, multiple accusers, and credibly documented misconduct requires its own archive.

President Trump is not an anomaly. He is the logical endpoint or the avatar of a culture that has decided winning is the only thing that matters.

A Revival Still Needed

This past Sunday, a friend hosted a small gathering to celebrate the coming of my second son. We’re in the final weeks now. Over the course of the afternoon, as these things go, the conversation turned to politics.

There was real frustration in the room about the candidates for Mayor of Los Angeles, the candidates for Governor of California, the options ahead.

And I’ll be honest. For those races, it’s too late. The slate is set. I hope whoever wins surprises us with their competence (I try to keep an open mind). I hope they deal seriously with California’s budget crisis, maintain the quality of public services people depend on, and haven’t been credibly accused of assaulting their staff. Somehow that last part still feels like a high bar.

We can do better. The question is whether we’re willing to.

When I left the White House I was exhausted and more cynical, ready to step back from a world increasingly dominated by people who wanted power for its own sake (a lot of them men, though not all). What I eventually realized is if everyone who finds that exhausting backs down, we’re left with only the power-hungry. The field doesn’t empty. It just fills with worse and worse people.

I know the network exists. People who want to do this right, who volunteer on their PTAs, who show up for their communities, who aren’t in it for themselves. I know money in politics creates structural barriers that are real and need changing. But the recruiting can start now. The connecting of dots can start now. In some places, I know it already has.

It is so frustrating to see yet more stories of candidate transgressions. One thing I will say, though, is that it does seem reassuring that we’re in a moment where it seems we’re very ready to throw out the bums.

The next step in solving this problem is making sure there are non-bums ready to take their place.

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Quick announcement: This Thursday April 16, 3 PM Pacific / 5 PM Central, I’ll be joining fellow Substacker Jay Nordlinger and Re:freedom, the new Substack by the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona, to kick off a series of conversations on freedom. Please join us if you can, right here on Substack.