A seismic public opinion shift occurred this summer that Scott Rasmussen was first to measure – a clear majority of the American people, critically including two-thirds of independents, are ready to vote them all out and start over with a new Congress.
But the crucial fact here is not the 57 percent of Rasmussen’s respondents who favor such action. Fully 59 percent said the same thing last October when Congress and the Bush administration were busily throwing $700 billion at Wall Street, allegedly to prevent an economic meltdown of unimagined severity.
The key here is that President Barack Obama and his Democratic congressional allies have moved so far to the left that they have forced a monumental shift among independents, and it was the Obamacare proposal to replace doctors with federal bureaucrats that made it happen.
Notes Rasmussen: “While Democrats have become more supportive of the legislators, voters not affiliated with either major party have moved in the opposite direction. Today, 70 percent of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate. That’s up from 62 percent last year.”
Opportunities like this come along once in a political lifetime. Instead of worrying about Whole Foods, the Tea Party leadership should be figuring out how to channel this tidal shift in American public opinion into concrete results in next year’s congressional elections.
Do it!
Notwithstanding that sentiment, most people would vote for their Congressman if the election were held tomorrow. I reckon that many of those who want to throw the bums out would balk at throwing their own bum out, even those with dodgy representatives (and Senators).
I would vote for my congressman, but he is a center right republican. My senators … a different story. I would like to beat them with jumper cables until they bleed.
There are strong game-theory reasons why it won’t happen. Getting rid of most Congressmen leaves the survivors with disproportionate power. In the worst case, the worst Congressional representatives, in the least-competitive districts (Pelosi), remain and the upstarts get kicked out. This is what the incumbents will argue, and many voters, particularly donors, will be convinced. The only way the replace-Congress plan can work is if there’s such a huge groundswell of anti-incumbent sentiment that it overwhelms the incumbents and leaves the survivors in fear for their seats the next time around. This may be unlikely, but unlikely events happen from time to time. The odds that it will happen eventually may be significant.
[deleted by admin]
Replace Congress? Well, no not anytime soon.
But when enough Americans (or at least a majority of those that vote) finally come to the realization that our Republic (NOT designed nor meant to be a Democracy) has strayed far from the path that our Founders intended. When those Americans finally understand what our Founders feared would happen, has indeed happened slowly and steadily over the last fifty or so years, Obama, Reid, Pelosi and others like them will never be reelected. Or you would think so, wouldn’t you? But because if we go by our past record, it shows that term limits are never set by the voters, except in very rare and extreme circumstances..
In the LAST ten or so years, it took an out of control federal government spending our money and lots of it to FINALLY get (some of us) our attention. while it (getting our attention) should have happened over these last fifty or so years, it just didn’t because it was a slow and steady drain of our liberty and stealthy building of government theft and accumulation of powers. There are still millions of Americans that don’t know or care a twit about politics but just vote the party line or even worse…don’t vote at all.
The democrats and those that are even worse (the ones that want to destroy and change our Republic) that hide under the democrat banner, that have been planning this takeover and government expansion of our Republic for eons. Each time they get in power, they along with those republicans in name only do more and more damage to our Republic.
Our Founder’s not only warned us against all this, but wrote rules and regulations in our Bill of Rights (and it’s Preamble), our Constitution,that were meant to warn, prepare and enable us to protect the Republic for which they stood, died for and wanted for all of their future generations of Americans.
So to re-cap: Over these years, we have allowed the slow destruction of our Founder’s vision, their plan and their hopes for our Republic- by our inability to understand and stop those like Pelosi, Reid, Obama and their host of radical thugs posing as politicians. Or if you don’t feel comfortable with the word “allowed” how about by just not paying attention and/or caring about “politics”.
I pray in the next few years or so there will be many more millions of Americans that will voice their opinion loud and clear and vote accordingly. If they don’t or are stopped by voter fraud and other Chicago tricks and tactics, then the only alternative is not to be spoken of until it will be almost too late.
Papa Ray
West (now Central) Texas
If we remove the perks, retirement and health care benefits, we won’t have CAREER politicians.
If the rules regarding seniority are removed, and each Senator or Representative starts anew with equal power in each Congress there will be less temptation to grow fiefdoms. The “LBJ way” of schmoozing mentioned in the other post about “Accidental Wars” won’t work if the congressmen don’t have any more power than any other congressman.
We don’t need term limits if the job returns to its original intent.
IMO
tom
Same old, same old.
People always have a low opinion of Congress, but they like their own congress-critter.
(…) our Republic (NOT designed nor meant to be a Democracy)
I beg your pardon, Papa Ray, but I cannot comprehend the differences between a republic and a democracy: while a monarchy can also be democratic, if a republic isn’t democratic doesn’t it become a «viva el presidentissimo» dictatorship?