Jim Traficant – America’s Last Outlaw

In 1993 Johnny Cash met a young producer who knew if he had the chance he could renew the purpose of country music’s greatest outlaw. It was seven years after Johnny lost his record contract. Johnny was playing small empty clubs. He treated these shows with the same energy and reverence that he had during the height of his career. The young producer knew if he brought Johnny ideas that he would adapt the music and record it his way. The limits would be pushed by the methods used to communicate Johnny’s voice and art. This was an experiment founded in a belief in the man and gut feeling that the audience still needed his passion. Some of the experiments failed, but many succeeded. From 1993-2002 Johnny Cash communicated his pain. His audience needed the man, the voice, and the legacy.

Jim Traficant shares the same fate. The opportunity exists for Jim’s voice and passion to be shared to an audience starving for direction. But like Johnny, he needs people who believe in him and to coach him in the new media. People he can trust to help him communicate his passions.

Jim is unique and extreme. He is a true outlaw who is without a peer, still capable of delivering a relevant message. He may be lost politically but it is not his low moment. Jim shares a powerful connection with those who remember him but his legacy will be written by those who have yet to be exposed to his words. They don’t know it but they share Jim’s feelings and are comfortable with his faults. Like Jim, they can’t be changed only transformed.

Jim is a mythological man defined not by actions or by words, but by pain and human flaws. Passion consumes him; the quest for honesty in government transformed him. He’s always let the political fads pass him. He trusted his gut. It wasn’t personal vendetta against anyone; rather it was a fight against a system that allowed the corruption. In response to confronting it, the system strung him up and let him go. But outlaws don’t die; their passion is renewed in the promise of cause.

It is that outlaw side of Jim that first attracted America to Jim. It is that same outlaw that will help define his legacy.

The current movement of political outlaws lacks personal involvement. Jim may not be called to lead this movement but he is the godfather. The goal is to give Jim the tools to communicate his passion and views.

To do this will not require Jim to change; it will only ask him share his journey by reframing the methods used. It will cement his legacy by pushing the limits of the story that can be told. This experiment will be done by Jim alone. It will require barriers to be broken down, new political habits to grow, and coaching Jim to embrace doing something new.

This must start with Jim. The space Jim will fill is the void left in the wake of a country defined by color, race, and gender. It will require Jim to tap into the same energy he’s always had just using a different outlet.

America took his freedom but not his ability to live congruently.

Jim we need you.

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