Jon Ralston laments the state of state politics, where the best of legislators all want to get out while all the worst do everything they can to stay in

Sunday, March 26, 2006 | 7:03 a.m.

Some people will call Bob Seale a wimp.

Some people will call Bob Seale a coward.

And some people will call Bob Seale a poseur.

I call him a symbol of what's wrong with politics.

When a man like Seale, a GOP assemblyman and former state treasurer, announces he is getting out, it's (again) time to start wondering what's wrong with a system where the good, dedicated people flee and the lesser ones would do anything to stay.

It's pointless and ad hominem to single out individuals, but just take a look at some of the misfits populating local and state government these days - and some of the candidates running for important offices - and you start feeling like Shelley surveying the wasteland left behind by that Egyptian king:

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

Seale is the kind of politician who is increasingly becoming a rare bird in the political aviary. He does not flutter around histrionically, looking for headlines. He does not strut peacock-like, showing his feathers to blind observers to his lumbering ways. He does not fly South for the summer and beg for jobs he is unqualified to do because he is qualified for none.

Seale is smart, consistent and skilled. Sit at home now and see how many Nevada pols you can name who merit all three of those adjectives. He's a thoughtful legislator, a successful businessman and a reasonable guy.

Again, tell me how many elected officials you can name who deserve all those phrases appended to their bios.

Seale was seen by many as a natural leader for the Republican caucus in the Assembly, a worthy successor to Lynn Hettrick, who, by the way, shares many of those same qualities. He also had been approached to take on state Sen. Sandra Tiffany, who is about to be swallowed up in an ethics maelstrom.

But he decided it wasn't worth it - literally and figuratively. A successful financial consultant, he decided making money was better than making enemies - or making friends with people he found execrable. And when he discovered that he would have to fight Assemblyman Garn Mabey tooth and nail to become minority leader and that even if he won, he might be leading a caucus numbering close to single digits, he packed it in.

Wimp? Coward? Poseur?

I'd say he's surrendering to reality, or what the reality has become for folks who decide to leave the private sector and commit to public service for a time. Many, like Seale, take a pay cut and look not for Rolling Stones tickets or golf outings, but for the chance to actually accomplish something substantive.

Seale's decision surely was motivated by diminishing GOP prospects in the lower house that could cause his caucus to be even more irrelevant. But as he tried to recruit candidates to defeat Democrats, the reality became all too clear.

Seale found that people don't want to run for two reasons: The loss of income and the loss of privacy. "The press is just killing people," he lamented. "I was pounding the pavement for people (to run). They just weren't to be had."

I know a lot of you will have little sympathy for that sentiment, especially some of my colleagues in the Fourth Estate. But we are part of the problem, especially those in our business who disgorge rumors, who pry into personal peccadilloes, who always choose scandal over substance. I have been guilty of some of it, but, I hope, not most of it.

Even if you don't think Seale is the best example, the phenomenon is undeniable. We essentially pay legislators less than the minimum wage and expect to get the best and the brightest? And then we are surprised when we get a Gang of 63 with a few statesmen and women, but too many folks who ran for the Legislature because they couldn't get a real job.

The free tickets, liquor and food may be the portrait of elective life too many have - and many will see that as charitable. But as the system continues to grow more corrupting - no matter how you define it - people like Seale will continue to leave or not choose to enter.

Call him a wimp.

Call him a coward.

Call him a poseur.

But he is out. And too many of those are still in.