Today is Election Day, with primaries or runoffs in 12 states. Let’s hope at least a few incumbents fall, from both parties.
Most Americans would cheer that. But we’ll then hear TV talking heads and pundits in the press tell us how crazily we’ve voted.
In 1994, ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings condescendingly reported that “The voters had a temper tantrum last week.… Parenting and governing don’t have to be dirty words: the nation can’t be run by an angry two-year-old.”
Were our choice so limited, I’d say give the two-year olds a shot.
Jennings’s snooty attitude has been echoed again and again this year. Mike Allen, Politico’s chief political writer, said after Utah’s Senator Bennett flamed out in a GOP convention, “There was no reason for his state to turn on him. Nobody delivers for Utah the way he does.”
Allen went on to rant about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s unpopularity in his home state: “Voters are not thinking … the idea of Nevada kicking out Harry Reid is absurd! He’s the #1 senator: #1 out of 100. Nobody delivers for Nevada like Harry Reid.”
Apparently, Mr. Allen knows best. Utah and Nevada voters? Fools, the lot of them — for not liking all the presents their big-shot politicians delivered for them.
Common sense, on the other hand, has it that anyone who votes to please the Washington press corps is truly crazy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.