Petitioning to run for public office begins soon in our part of the state. It’s the first step in our politics-as-sport phenomena. What started as a desire to dump the monarchy and become a republic has somehow morphed into a billion-dollar business based more on marketing prowess than lower taxes, safer neighborhoods or smooth streets.

In sports there is always the talk of fundamentals; the “basics” of the game. Blocking and tackling in football; skating and stick work in hockey; pitching and catching in baseball etc. It’s the same in business and politics. There are certain fundamental elements to success.

Here is the fundamental of politics: The only thing it takes to be in power is 50 — plus one vote on one day each year. The good-to-great politicians know this; the perennial losers do not. There is no accounting for trying hard or having good intentions.

While the fundamentals have always been the same politics has evolved beyond the quaint days when any citizen could rise up and play the game. There is clearly the professional level of politics, some lesser league play, and some people who still seem to do it part-time, on weekends, merely because they love the game. But where the real power lies, this is a high-stakes game for total control, and the good Samaritan with a kind heart will find no comfort there.

The key to all of this professionalization of course money. When money came into sports it transformed the game. No different in politics. When the players in sports demanded more and more money the owners built larger stadiums and got better at marketing their franchise. In politics, when the politicians began demanding more and more money they invented lobbyists and started marketing legislation as if it were bubble gum. Kidnapping and torturing a child now had a name, not just a penalty, and gosh darn it we’ve got to get the parents on stage to help sell this thing.

But here’s one fundamental the “fan” of politics often forgets. The person or group that pays the freight of the professional politician gets the rewards from those politicians. Many voters are under the false assumption that they — the ticket-buying public if you will — pay the salaries. But just like in sports, it’s the mega-advertisers and sponsors who pay the largest sums to keep the franchise going. Game-day ticket sales don’t account for the complete picture.

One huge sponsor of professional politics is the teachers union — NYSUT, which stands for New York State United Teachers. They are currently the big bad icon of all that is wrong in the world and, according to state politicians, they need to be slain and their head posted on a stick in the public square, uh, district-wide newsletter. By and large, these things run like clockwork from the Albany public relations machine. It’s a cycle, nothing personal, and it’s NYSUT’s turn. Charter schools are all the rage to the ticket-buying public, and we must play to that crowd, at least until things calm down.

But things don’t always go smoothly when you are the darling of the politicians one day, and the ogre to them the next. Nobody likes to be the bad guy, and NYSUT needs to keep generating those union dues, with union bosses keeping themselves in power. It all flows downhill as they say, and if this means there’s no more nurse in the school, oh well.

The New York Post reported this week that a NYSUT Board Member and President of a local Long Island Teachers Association made an actual cash proposal to someone if they’d run for office against one State Senator who recently voted for an increase to the number of Charter Schools allowed to operate in New York State. According to the Post, this Board Member offered $200,000 in campaign cash from NYSUT as well as the Working Families Party endorsement.

It is not surprising that this gets reported. These conversations take place all the time, even right here in Niagara County. What is surprising is the professionalism of the PR campaign for or against any particular issue or group. NYSUT is merely this year’s ugly duckling; they have become the money sponsor the professionals find suddenly toxic. Like banning cigarette ads at the stadium, they find themselves in a different market.

As a fan of the sport of politics, just make sure you don’t read anything ethical or unethical into school union bashing. It’s just about the money; it always has been.

Tom Christy is founder of FAIR Government, a foundation dealing with local government issues. Visit www.fair-government.org. Contact him at aim1986@mac.com.