Running for Governor, you learn. One thing you learn is how many facts people know that are not so. Another is how easily people assume, assert, malign, and project their cynicism on those who step up to serve. It all teaches.
Examples are legion, but my belief in conservative ideas – lower taxes, less government spending and regulation, more oversight, less corruption, greater electoral integrity, and improved public safety and reduced political violence – draws fire.
Remarkably, I have learned I am variously a “moron,” “bigot,” “evil Nazi,” condone legal transgressions, want “concentration camps,” and am an “enemy” because I believe in law enforcement, consequences, and national security.
The list of things one learns is long. Despite being an NRA safe hunter since age 11, Eagle Scout, and .22 marksman since 13, Naval Officer, and expert marksman, owning rifles, shotguns, and sidearms – regularly used – I am “anti-gun.”
Of course, I am not. No sooner do you clear one thing up than you learn you are anti-free speech (since you oppose riots) or too free speech (as you shrug at fools).
Then you discover – despite years of working with minorities – you are “racist” if you aim to prosecute those defrauding taxpayers, self-dealing, stealing millions from state Medicaid programs – since some are black and all are Democrats.
You learn that faith in Jesus Christ, belief in a loving God, and life’s precious nature – make you a secular heretic, since many Democrats prefer Government to God.
I am dubbed a secular heretic, since I question the government’s power, refuse climate hysteria, believe Title 9 protects girls, not boys who think they are girls, think investigations should discover things, not hide them, and want criminals in prison.
You learn so much about yourself running for Governor. I realized, for example, I live in a “mansion” and am “rich” – which shocked me, since I split my own wood, have a modest home, barely pay my bills, and have no significant savings.
I learned that, despite growing up in Maine, critics think I should have asked my parents to be born here. My father was enlisted Navy, so my mother delivered me in an out-of-state Naval hospital in Virginia. I learned I am a bigot for thinking that those who enter America illegally and commit crimes should be caught and deported.
All this put me in mind – this new learning – of some of my favorite people.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, in defense of free speech: “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god; it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Dr. Suess – aka Theodore Geisel – wrote: “If you do not like me, remember it’s mind over matter. I don’t mind, and you don’t matter.”
In the end, much comes back to the integrity of your mind, doing the right thing as you see it, not getting thrown off by those who do not. Freedom requires that shrug.
Wrote Reagan, in whose White House I worked, “If we have the integrity to do what is right, freedom will not only survive – it will triumph.” We must hope so.
One layer deeper – beyond tolerating thoughtlessness – two other truths.
First, whatever people think of you, they do not know your life’s work, challenges and hardships, what you have done, overcome, how you stepped up, or your gratitude.
Wrote my favorite world explorer, Shackleton: “No person who has not spent a period of his life in those ‘stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole’…will understand fully what trees and flowers, sun flecked turf, and running streams mean to the soul of a man.” We carry unique pasts, and must appreciate others’ pasts.
Second, hurling insults at people you do not know, those stepping up to serve rather than carp, hate, or profit – is a habit best unlearned, as it hurts the hurler.
Wrote Nelson Mandela: “No one is born hating another person…People must learn to hate. If they can learn to hate…they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Profound insight, easily lost.
Nutshell: Keep stepping up, but prepare for cynics and that modern madness, hate. Take nothing personally, since they do not know you. Model compassion and keep learning. Or Reagan advised, “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.”
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
