Some of you may remember a book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, a very popular dissertation by John Gray that supposedly explained the differences between men and women as they relate to relationships. If you read the book, you probably learned a few things about those perspectives; if you didn't read it, you probably received a lecture from your spouse about why you should have.

Relationships are very important. Those that work well give us a sense of satisfaction; those that don't are a constant source of frustration. Sometimes there are long periods of good times in relationships followed by periods of bad times, and the ups and downs often can be a source of a great deal of emotional stress and strain. A reasonable person looks forward to establishing a relationship that stays fairly stable, one that contains at least the basic elements of respect and trust to keep differences of opinion from turning into outright conflict. That is the theory to understanding Gray's thesis that men are from a warlike planet and women are after affection!

Gray's theory can be applied to the relationship that exists between fire chiefs and politicians, a relationship that can be good or bad. Fire chiefs tend to come from a somewhat black-and-white world background; politicians often come from a world of gray. I think it's reasonable to say that we fire officers are from Mars, but where are the politicians coming from? I am not talking about any specific politician right now; I am talking about the classification in general.

In Gray's world Venus is already occupied, so I would like to suggest that maybe politicians are from Pluto. Pluto inhabits the outer reaches of our solar system. Recently the diminutive orb's status as a planet has been challenged. This decision reminds me of a lot of people in the political world who are unwilling to make a long-range commitment unless they can get something out of it and who are perfectly willing to change their short-term commitments if they think there's a better benefit to be gained elsewhere.

For now, don't think about your favorite politician. Almost everyone knows at least one political figure they admire and respect. Instead, think about the political process in its entirety. How many times have we had political figures come to fire service events and tell us that we are America's heroes, only to turn right around and go back to various and sundry legislative bodies and vote down programs vital to us doing our jobs?

Labor unions have attempted to overcome this by doing everything they possibly can to be in the right corner at election time. Firefighters often are given more flexibility to be able to support the political process than chiefs are. They have access to many techniques, from door-knocking efforts to making significant financial donations through a political action committee. In contrast, chief officers are sometimes restricted from those activities for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes the politicians whom firefighters endorse get elected and, true to their words, do a very good job of representing the labor position. On the other hand, some of them are closet critics. I can say without too much fear of contradiction that there are politicians who will take our money and then bad mouth us behind closed doors. I know that because I have witnessed it, but as the old saying goes, one does not kiss and tell, so who might have done what or where they might have done it are irrelevant. However, I'm convinced that many of the people in the political arena who are soliciting the fire service's support are making only a superficial commitment to anything other than their own success.

Then there's another genre of political participant — the former firefighter who has run for office and been elected. More power to them, I say; I think we need more of them. Over the years, I've kept track of the number of police chiefs who have migrated to city manager positions or state legislative bodies, and I can tell you that their presence in the political arena is considerably greater than the fire service's presence. In general, once most fire folks reach their time to retire, they have little or no interest in sitting behind some stuffy desk at a city council or even a state legislature. Our political process seems to lack true fire service proponents.

I'm not going to be so rude as to suggest that any firefighter would betray the profession, but I will tell you that once people get elected there's a tremendous amount of pressure on them to please other constituents, not just the special interest of the fire service. This is where the word “politics” rears its ugly head. In a democracy, the individual who is elected to represent a constituency may represent a special interest but also may be forced to take a contrary position on an issue because of the political process.

I hope that this raises awareness that we in the fire service should not remain naïve about the political process. If we're going to fight for what we believe in — and we should do that every chance we get — we also must be very much aware of those politicians who are merely using the fire service for their own devices.

In my years of visiting a wide variety of political campaigns, I've sat in on planning sessions where political staffs want to position their particular political luminary on the back end of a fire truck to prove that they have the fire service's support. Countless elected officials will come to our knife-and-fork fire station social gatherings and tell us what great people we are, but the political influence is true only if:

• That individual provides access and is open to input from the fire service constituency.
• The individual initiates legislation rather than waiting for legislation to be initiated and then handed over to him or her to act upon.
• The elected official keeps an open channel of communications to ensure that as the debate moves forward to the time a particular act is voted on, there's ample opportunity for conflicts to be resolved and for communications to be improved so that we can better the condition of the fire service.

From my perspective, probably one of the truest fire service politicians ever in this country has been Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania. He was a man of his word who went to Congress and has done everything within his power to lobby for and pursue things that he felt were in the best interest of the fire service. I would also submit the name of Sen. Bill Campbell from California, who chaired the state's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission. He often took controversial positions and in some cases fought a lot of hard battles, but he was true to his conviction of supporting the fire service. Other names like Steny Hoyer and Paul Sarbanes resonate, also.

I'm sure that if I asked you to start filling out a form to nominate a politician of the year who meets these criteria, you could come up with your own local city council person, county board supervisor, state assemblyman, state senator or federal legislator. I would encourage you to make that list and check it twice; it represents the best of the breed.

If we go back to the concept of building relationships, I think that if we are going to fight for principle, then we need to understand the politicians' side of the coin. We can't always blame politicians merely because they don't do what we want them to do. We often have to understand where they are coming from. Being on Pluto is a cold, lonely place sometimes. We have to learn to be the friends of politicians when things aren't going well for them as well as when they are going well for them. We can't just invite them to the ceremonial aspects; we must invite them into the culture of our business.

As I was writing this column, I couldn't help but wonder how many marriages were affected by Gray's book? One might make a good case that it saved a lot of marriages; one might also make the case that it caused a lot of divorces. I don't know which is more likely. It really doesn't make any difference, because the one thing that Gray did suggest is that if we understand where the other person is coming from, then maybe we can make some choices on our own that will determine where we will end up someday.

With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the State of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.