Jennifer Wagner Chartier: I wish politics were a bit more like swimming

Indianapolis recently hosted the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, and it was everything big sporting events have come to expect from our city: beautiful, exciting and perfectly executed.

We have a swimmer in the family, so we probably went to more events than most locals. As we sat there marveling at the pool inside a football stadium, it got me thinking about how I wish politics were more like swimming. Here are some reasons why.

One of the things I like most about the sport is that it’s extremely stable. There are only four strokes in swimming, and most kids can execute them by age 10 with reasonable fidelity. Some of the athletes at the trials weren’t much older than that. The basics of swimming are pretty simple; it takes years of practice to get better and faster, something that sometimes comes down to an objective measurement of hundredths of a second.

If you’ve ever been to a swim meet, you know they all run the same way. The lanes are the same length, and there are three ways to keep time—the electronic starting system, the plunger and the good old-fashioned stopwatch.

We’ve volunteered at our fair share of meets, and you can wind up timing athletes who’ve never jumped off the block before and then, a few heats later, athletes trying to make an Olympic time cut. The rules are the same, and everyone has to follow them or you get disqualified. Similarly, the highly experienced officials at trials followed the same procedures you’ll find at any club meet in any town across America.

Finally, I’d like to make a generalization about swimmers that someone out there will probably push back on because they had a negative encounter once upon a time: They are among the humblest athletes I’ve ever encountered.

The most decorated Olympian of all time is among the edgiest swimmers in the sport, and his run-ins with the law pale in comparison to what many flashier high-profile athletes do on any given weekend. It’s not a sport where that kind of behavior wins you fame and fortune.

The athletes who were in Indy competing to punch their tickets to the Paris games were signing caps and taking selfies at the side entrance to Lucas Oil Stadium after they got done swimming. They know their value, but there’s not a lot of hubris. Just hard work and dedication.

This might read like a thinly veiled endorsement for the political establishment, and perhaps I do yearn a little too much for the olden days when people ran for office to lead and govern by uniting—or at least trying to unite—all of the people they serve. I liked it when the rules were clearer, when candidates competed on the merits of their ideas and not who could deliver the best insult.

These days, politics feels more like competitive eating, where you shove as much food as you can down your throat and try to keep it in your stomach.

I might be an eternal optimist, but I hope we can channel a more stable sport as we move through this election year and into the future. In that ideal landscape, there’s still a place in politics for aspiring leaders who work hard, stay in their lane, follow the rules and remain humble when the competition ends and political sport turns into everyday governing.•

__________

Chartier is a lifelong Indianapolis resident and owner of Mass Ave Public Relations. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

Click here for more Forefront columns.