Assembly Seat E: Leslie McFarlane Round 1 Q & A

It took 1 week for Mr. McFarlane to get answers back to me. Still he was 1 of the only 4 to respond to the original questionnaire sent out 8/20/11.

Thanks so much for sending me these questions. I deeply appreciate your interest in public affairs.

1. What would you say are the top 3 attributes in a candidate?

1. Honesty
This involves not only not lying, but by not saying things that are technically true but are misleading. I'll give an analogy: If I know that we spend $150 a week on groceries, but I want to increase our spending to $175 a week, I could say that our projected grocery budget is 200 dollars a week and that we are cutting our spending $25 a week when we are actually raising our spending from $150 to $175. In government we can be that misleading and tricky with voters. We can actually want to raise the Borough budget by $5 million, but so as to cover it up, we can state that we cut the spending by setting the projected spending up $10 million, cut that by $5 million, and then hope that the voters won't catch on that all the way along we wanted to raise the budget by $5 million. The principle I will live by is to never do or say anything that I have to hope nobody finds out about.

2. Vote for what is best.
An officeholder's only consideration is to vote for what's best. For instance, a Borough Assembly member's only concern on his voting should be what's best for the Borough. Voting for what he knows is wrong in order to advance his political career, to please high ranking people in his party, and to please those who helped him in his campaign has no place!

3. Having a thick skin
A person should have the quality of learning from criticism. Issues need to be discussed from all angles. It is a shame for a person to act like he is a mistreated victim because people disagree with him. A candidate should never feel that those who disagree with him are his enemies.

2. What top five principles do you try to live by ? Why?

1. Persistence
A person shouldn't give up when the going gets rough.

2. Courage
A person needs to stand for what is right regardless of what the latest poll says. His consideration should not be on what the majority of the voters want, but on what is right. An adviser to President Reagan spoke to him about what the polls said. President Reagan told the adviser to not tell him any more about what the polls said , but to tell him about what was best for the American people.

3. Kindness
A person needs to be kind to everyone. That kindness needs to be shown to everyone, including his toughest opponent. He needs to run a positive campaign.

4. Humility
When a person is criticized he should try to learn by the criticism. It is always wrong for a political candidate to take the attitude that he know it all. He should never have a defensive attitude. Wanting to prove you're right and the critic wrong is our of order. Any person should always be ready to apologize when that is needed. President Abraham Lincoln mailed a letter of apology to the Union General in the Civil War, U. S. Grant, for what he had instructed him to do as General.

5. Thankfulness
There is always things to complain about, but there is always a lot to be thankful for. Having a cheerful, upbeat attitude is a necessity.

I will try to live by these principles because to me these are essential. I want to be held accountable for what I say I believe.

3.What makes a community a great place to live?

What makes a community a great place to live is the quality of the people living in it. You can have the greatest employment opportunities, educational opportunities, booming businesses, wonderful tourist attractions, but what counts first and foremost is the quality of the people in the community.

4.Have you ever made missteps in your political career? Care to elaborate or say what you would do differently today?

I haven't had a political career. I applied to be State Representative from District 11 when there was a vacancy in 2009, and now I'm running for the Borough Assembly.

5.Many politicians (whether they run for Senate or School Board) always claim their best for the job due to experience, is experience all its cut out to be or are there more attributes we should be looking for?

Experience is good, but I believe that is is greatly overrated. There are more attributes that we should be looking for. One thing that I believe is important is that especially next year when candidates are running in a primary that they be asked a simple question. They need to be asked that in the event they lose the primary,that they will accept the primary result and not run a write in campaign. The majority vote of the people in primaries should be final.

When people stress only experience in a political candidate, I wish that they would think of the four great Presidents who are honored at Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. If at the time of them assuming the Presidency, how inspiring would their resumes have been if they had resumes back then?

George Washington was greatly embarrassed when as a British leader in the French and Indian War, it spread far and wide that he was forced to surrender to the French forces. In 1755 he ran for the Virginia House Of Burgesses in a three way race and came out a poor third, receiving less that 10% of the vote!

Thomas Jefferson in the Revolutionary war as Governor of Virginia fled from the State Capital because of British opposition. I don't say that with any hint of criticism about him, but I believe that his background coming to the Presidency was not altogether glamorous.

Abraham Lincoln lost seven political races before becoming President. His office holding experience consisted of 8 years(1834-1842) as a member of the Illinois State Legislature, and of 2 years(1847-1849) as a Congressman from Illinois.

Theodore Roosevelt became Vice President Of The United States after only 2 years as Governor of New York, and President after having been Vice President for 6 months and 10 days.

This hows me that there is more to be considered than experience.

I don't have a website yet, but I am working to get one. I'll let you know when it is up. I don't have a blog.

I thank you again for your questions, Ms. Robinson, and I will welcome your further input about government and politics. My home phone is 490-6966 and I reside at 1130 Glenn St. North Pole, Ak 99705.