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.