Category: incumbents

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incumbents political challengers

To America With Love

Congress’s approval rating just dipped to a mere ten percent — a new all-​time low even lower than the all-​time low set just months ago when their abysmal approval rating was even lower than the historic low hit a few months before that.

No, Congress, we don’t want to be your Valentine.

About now someone somewhere is saying that folks may not like Congress, but they do like their own member of Congress. Not so. A recent poll showed that voters don’t want their own so-​called representative re-​elected, either.

So, why do incumbents still get re-​elected? Well, in most congressional districts, there is a dominant political party — either the Democrats or the Republicans. The winner of that party’s primary is a virtual shoo-​in in the general election.

Most folks turn out to cast their votes in the general election, when in most districts it’s already been decided, but fail to show up in the all-​important primary election, when they could actually make a difference.

What to do? Well, several patriots hopped into a phone booth and changed into a SuperPAC, called the Campaign for Primary Accountability. The group says, “We have two parties. Both are irresponsible. Both are unaccountable.”

And already the SuperPAC has raised $1.8 million to target, in their primaries, a number of supposedly safe House incumbents: Representatives Spencer Bachus (R‑Ala), Bob Brady (D‑Pa.), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D‑Ill.), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D‑Texas), Tim Johnson (R‑Ill.), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D‑Ohio), Don Manzullo (R‑Ill.), Tim Murphy (R‑Pa.), Silvestre Reyes (D‑Texas), Jean Schmidt (R‑Ohio).

There could be no better Valentine for our republic than seeing entrenched incumbents defeated. The primary is a smart place for that battle. You might even want to send your own heartfelt message.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture incumbents

Frankly Speaking

Representative Barney Frank’s recently announced retirement is not exactly a shock. His sense of timing may be better than most of his incumbent colleagues. Perhaps he smells something repellent slouching towards Washington: a secondary bust, another kick in the economy’s collective pants.

Funny, his timing had been a little slow soon after the Crash of 2008, when he protested that it hadn’t been he who had been pushing cheap mortgages and a policy of lax mortgage standards — oh no! — or he who had just recently proclaimed Fannie and Freddie to be doing just fine, thank you.

The New York Times, dubbing him a “top liberal,” cited redistricting as the major spark for his decision. Then it went on to quote Rep. Frank as blaming Newt Gingrich and the “conservative news media” for uglying up the tone in Washington, calling the present ideological climate a “bitter divide.”

Of course, before the Internet and Fox News, a near-​monolithic liberal slant dominated major media. Adding an offsetting bias might have made it tougher for Frank, but surely the new toughness reflects actual American opinion better than the previous left-​leaning cultural hegemony ever did.

Frank amusingly claims he has, now, but “one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.” I bet he tweets soon.

Summarizing the advantages of not running for re-​election, he explained that he would no longer “have to try to pretend to be nice to people” he doesn’t like.

No more Mr. Nice Guy? No more Mr. Clean?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture incumbents term limits

Burial Rites

Libyan dictator Mu’ammer Gaddafi is dead. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez roams free.

Chavez recently returned to Venezuela from a cancer-​fighting tour of Cuba, proclaiming that “there is not a malignant cell in this body.”

  1. This is almost certainly not true, but
  2. let’s pretend it is, and just say that Hugo reserves his malignancy for his politics.

Usually, I’d contrast the lives of these two headmen with the more peaceful careers of term-​limited U.S. presidents. But if we stick to the news, to the very latest breaking stories, another contrast appears: The thousand-​year-​old Viking recently uncovered in Ardnamurchan, in the Scottish Highlands.

His burial was “high status,” we’re told. With him were his sword, his ax, his spear, and his shield. “He was somebody who had the capacity to do an awful lot of damage to people,” says one archaeologist.

In that way, the big-​shot Viking was like Gaddafi and Chavez. But we’ll never know what this particular Viking did, in the way of harm. Of Gaddafi’s and Chavez’s crimes, we know all too well.

Gaddafi won’t likely receive as respectful a post-​mortem treatment as the Viking received, at least if his “Weekend With Bernie” jaunt through Libyan streets is any indicator. It pays to die while still on top.

Which Chavez might be wise to ponder, instead of gloating about his cancer-​free cellular composition.

Dictators might not be term-​limited, but the ends of their careers tend to be pretty grim.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture incumbents political challengers

Establishment Out

Another one bites the dust: Nine-​term Congressman Mike Castle was defeated in Delaware’s primary by Tea Party-​backed candidate Christine O’Donnell.

Weeks ago, incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was bested in the Republican primary by Joe Miller, also Tea Party-​supported. Before that Utah Senator Robert Bennett lost his re-​nomination bid.

U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, who has actively assisted the insurgent Republicans, clarifies: “The GOP establishment is out.”

Media folks love talking about the angry mood throughout the land. The bad economic times have made people upset, they say — the supposition being that this rage is irrational, aimed indiscriminately at those in government, no matter how well they may have performed.

But the mainstream media hypothesis is wrong on both counts. First, the anger at career politicians isn’t new. Four years ago, long before the recession, Alaska GOP voters tossed out their incumbent governor, one Frank Murkowski, in favor of Sarah Palin. Voters have long disapproved of the way career politicians have wrecked our country. At some point, “enough” has morphed to “too much,” hence the current large-​scale revolt.

Further, voters are clearly discriminating, not taking their ire out on all incumbents, just those they feel have not represented their interests.

That’s why we have elections: to hold elected officials accountable.

We ought not bemoan that citizens are boiling mad, but that it takes so much bad behavior by politicians to raise this righteous fury.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights incumbents national politics & policies

The Kill-​Political-​Discourse Act

Sometimes politicians name their legislation the better to hide what they are trying to do. The name fails to disclose, you might say.

Consider the so-​called DISCLOSE Act, which just passed the House of Representatives by a mostly party-​line vote of 219 – 206 and is now awaiting action in the Senate. The full name of the monstrosity is the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act. It should be called the Democracy Is Undermined by Rigging the Game to Favor Incumbents and Especially Democrats Act.

The goal is to hamper political advertising by independent groups and corporations by requiring disclosure of the names of contributors who give above $600 a year. The new rules would harm corporations more than unions, and would foist anew some of the same burdens on First Amendment rights just overturned by the Supreme Court. The same court that threw out chunks of McCain-​Feingold on free speech grounds would also likely find DISCLOSE unconstitutional.

But could the court do so before the 2010 elections? Democrats like Hank Johnson ― who told fellow partisans that the Act, if passed, would stop Republicans from being elected ― are betting that it can’t. Their hope is that with the speech-​shackling new law skewing things in their favor until the high court acts, they’ll be more likely to escape political annihilation in November.

No, we can’t wait for the Supremes on this one. Call your senator.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
incumbents national politics & policies

Without a Vision

Close your eyes for three seconds — not if you’re on the road right now though — and imagine what you would do if you were in the Congress. Fight for new legislation? Repeal misguided old statutes? Block pork-​barrel spending? Combat corruption?

Our dreams shape our horizons; they’re an inspiration and a challenge to do our best. That “vision-​thing” is important. If we don’t envision it, we don’t attempt it. Now, I don’t want to start preaching, but the Bible itself says, “Without a vision, my people perish.”

Take Senator Trent Lott from Mississippi. He leads the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. Asked by reporters what he hoped to accomplish this year, Lott replied: “We don’t have to score a touchdown, we just have to control the clock.” Huh? Republicans have the ball, and they ain’t exactly winning out there on the field, and all they want to do is run out the clock?

Lott and those like him would rather stay in Washington twiddling their thumbs than take a political risk to advance the issues they claim to care about. Commentator Robert Novak says, “They lack courage because they are professional politicians. They are much more worried about the next election, about keeping their majority, about keeping their seats, than they are about having the courage do the right thing.”

Good point. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to win elections. But to junk your agenda simply to hold on to power? 

Power to do what?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.