Remember the first Star Wars movie? Just when the Empire’s star-cruisers were closing in on Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, the good guys in their spaceship made the light-speed jump to hyper-space , escaping the Empire’s storm-troopers. The politicians want to make a jump, too.
Their jump is to what we might call hyper-incumbency. They don’t want to escape the Empire; they are the Empire. They want to escape us the voters.
George Nethercutt is the fellow who won office pledging to serve only three terms. Now he’s breaking his word. His betrayal of the people of Eastern Washington is a sad commentary on the corruptible nature of man. But the encouragement Nethercutt has gotten from the Republican leadership big dollars and other reelection help all to double-cross the voters, well, that’s truly despicable.
Republicans won their congressional majority by anchoring the Contract With America with a promise to fight for term limits. Now, these same men renounce term limits, yank it from the platform and back George Nethercutt. These career politicians want an even bigger victory from the Nethercutt race: a victory over any notion that the voters can hold the professional politicians who run Congress accountable.
Wesley Pruden of The Washington Times called Nethercutt “the perfect emblem of the Republican campaign for the House.” And he suggested a slogan for the GOP jump to Hyper-Incumbency: “Vote Republican, we’re not as bad as you think.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.