RSSA New Political Philosophy
July 3rd, 2007 | View Comments
Blah blah blah, Scooter Libby.
We got to this place because despite Bush’s inept handling of just about everything under the sun, people still preferred the devil they knew to the devil named John Kerry. As a result, Bush and Cheney feel perfectly entitled to flip the finger at all of America at least once a day.
This is gross.
Let me introduce the new philosophy that will be governing my voting from now on. It has the advantage of preventing exactly this sort of behavior from politicians while saving me a lot of time following the news and researching candidates. The philosophy is easily summed like this:
Incumbents suck.
In this country, thanks to gerrymandering and a bunch of other tools of the already-elected, incumbents win re-election something like 90% of the time. They know this. And so they figure they can be as do-nothing, incompetent, or corrupt as they like as long as it’s far enough away from election day to have slipped from voters’ minds. Assuming they get called on it in the first place.
Thus, from now on, I am voting against every single incumbent on the ballot. If there is no incumbent, I will vote against the incumbent party. I will also be voting against incumbents’ spouses, children, and siblings.*
If one of my representatives does something indisputably fantastic, then maybe I will reconsider. Maybe. Because the only way politicians will collectively start to respect the will of the people is if we start throwing them out of office a lot more regularly. Please join me in making that happen.
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*If Hillary Clinton is elected the next president, that will mean the presidency will be held by the same two families for a minimum of 24 years. And you know Jeb is going to make a run for it in 2012. It’s dynastic and un-American and I won’t support it.
Yvonne posted this on July 3rd, 2007 @ 4:57pm in News/Politics | Permalink to "A New Political Philosophy"
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2. Scott » July 3rd, 2007 at 8:51 pm
That’s actually a pretty good philosophy, unfortunately. New people get elected, and they want to do good. But it doesn’t take them long to be corrupted by the system. If I can’t distinguish between the candidates on the issues that are important to me, I ALWAYS vote for the challenger.
3. Yvonne » July 4th, 2007 at 3:37 am
Fortunately, I disagree with Hillary on enough major issues that the legacy problem is but the eleventy-billionth nail in the coffin.
I’m trying to decide if the primary is important enough to make me register for a party before it rolls around. I miss Wisconsin’s open primary.
I would like to actually live in a competitive district for once. I’ve only ever voted in extremely lopsided Democratic areas (though I have only lived in swing states thus far). My next home is likely to be a district that hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1966 in a ginormous solid red state. I won’t even have the fun of being represented by Ron Paul. Sad.
4. Single-Issue Voter » Thought Bubbles » February 8th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
[…] already declared that I’m not voting for Clinton because political dynasties suck, but I’m going to give her a shot to win me […]
1. Jane » July 3rd, 2007 at 5:42 pm
An acquaintance said she refused to vote for Hillary because of the legacy problem. She believed that Bush acted to finish up Bush Sr’s “business” in the Middle East. Even if she’d otherwise support Hillary, she felt it would create the same problem because Bill was formerly in office and Hillary would have baggage and handle Bill’s “unfinished business”.