Guess who said this: “My gosh, these people in Washington are running the country right into the ground.”
According to the New York Times, it was Senator Orrin Hatch who voiced that lament — “despite having lived and worked [in Washington DC] for the last 34 years.”
Those old-timers! They retain all the advantages of incumbency, but pretend to be exempt from criticism when the results of their habits become clear.
That’s why last week’s primaries auger well: Seems that being the establishment’s favored candidate — or a longtime incumbent — does not even guarantee winning a nomination.
In Pennsylvania, the unprincipled Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter sought to avoid getting clobbered in the GOP primary. Instead, he got clobbered in the Democratic primary — despite the support of the Democratic Party establishment.
Likewise, in Kentucky, Rand Paul wrested the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate from Secretary of State Trey Grayson, the party-backed candidate, with a 23 percent margin.
Paul, who explicitly allies himself with the Tea Party movement, was soon engulfed in controversy over the 46-year old Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial discrimination in public accommodations. Meanwhile, Congressman Sestak’s charge that the Obama White House offered him a federal job in an attempt to keep him out of the race, possibly a federal crime, dampened the news of his triumph.
Still, it seems clear: the voters don’t want “Those people in Washington” running the country into the ground.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Incumbents and Upstarts”
See, Paul? Term limits are NOT required to drive the scoundrels out. It takes an informed electorate.
Term limits are not simply to throw out the scoundrels occasionally, but to keep good people from becoming career politicians (and thus scoundrels).
I disagree. Term limits are a nuclear weapon that takes out the good as well as the bad. In San Diego we have 3 “local” gov’t entities: city, county & state. City & state have term limits. Both are absolute financial disasters. The city council and state legislatures are wholely owned by the unions. The county supervisors are not term limited. The county is on very solid financial footing. There’s a proposition on the local ballot to term limit them now, too. Major sponsor: SEIU. They’re trying to drive out the sitting supervisors so they can put their own lackeys in.
City — term limits, union owned => disaster
County — no term limits, NOT union controlled (yet) => solvent
State — term limits, union owned => disaster
I see a pattern here.
Term limits have other benefits. Turnover of politicians makes it more difficult for those seeking to buy government favors via campaign donations. When reelection rates are high (as the politicians have made it hard to get an incumbent voted out) rent seekers just invest in incumbents. But if the winner isn’t so clear (such as when a politicians term expires making them unable to run) then such investments don’t necessarily result in government favors.
Politicians who distinguish themselves can find other races to run in.