When Jonathan Miller told me about his idea of starting a website titled The Recovering Politician, I thought it was a clever concept—-a partly tongue-in-cheek, partly insightful look at life after elective office. There is the famous last scene in the film The Candidate where Robert Redford’s character, a charismatic underdog running for the US Senate, pulls out a narrow upset against an entrenched incumbent. Just before his acceptance speech he ducks into a small room to avoid the throng of supporters cheering him on. He wants a moment alone with his campaign manager whose sole purpose in life is to win political campaigns. The Candidate, looking perplexed, looks up and solemnly asks, “What do we do now?” (Click on Redford’s mug to view the scene.)

It’s an “Aha” moment for the audience that what primarily drives some of our political candidates may not be the privilege of toiling over mundane public policy day in and day out, but rather to “win” some kind of overdramatized contest and the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. (Think of the hit TV series the Apprentice that follows job applicants for months going through a variety of ordeals until one is finally told by Donald Trump, “You’re hired.” We never find out—or care, for that matter—how the winner actually performs on the job.) Political candidates often get similar treatment from voters and the media. We treat business and politics as part sport and part theater.

But The Recovering Politician asks a slightly different and more personally poignant question: When one’s political yearnings have been squelched, dashed, sated, or otherwise drummed out of him or her, doesn’t every ex-politician go into that same small room ––this time alone—and ask, “Now what do I do?” The answer, of course, is yes —and the choices ex-politicos make to create meaning in their lives post-politics is more interesting and hopeful than one might think. The Recovering Politician blog  explores this area in hopes of humoring and humanizing the reader—and the subjects.