The Unpredictability of Politics

Hey everybody! So I took a little Spring Break from updating this blog, so I'm going to do a few extra posts this week to make up for it. Anyway, last time I updated, I was pretty sure that Barack Obama would be the next Democratic nominee. Three Clinton primary victories later, and its up in the air again! But it does provide a lesson in the unpredictable nature of political work. You never know what is going to happen, and there is rarely stability.
In politics, things can change in a blink of an eye (ask Eliot Spitzer) and those changes don't just affect individual politicians, but their entire staff. Especially in Congress, with elections every two years for House members and six years for Senate members, you might find yourself out of a job! One funny story I heard was when I was an intern for a Republican (I was an office intern, so it was largely non-partisan work). One of the staff members there used to work for former Virginia Senator George Allen. She said she left that office because she wanted a stable job and she was worried that she'd lose her job when he ran for President. Well, she was right about losing her job. But unlike what she predicted, she would've lost it because he lost his re-election bid for Senate in a stunning upset!
My point is, if you're getting into politics, you have to be prepared to live a relatively transient lifestyle. You may be moving from job to job, depending on the conditions. If you want stability, I suggest you work in a non-partisan job. There are plenty of career bureaucrats who don't have to worry about which way the political wind is blowing.