Vorpal Sword

Vorpal Sword I found out today that a member from Philadelphia will be retiring. Her apparent successor put out a press release saying he was the go to guy. Why should a former district office staffer feel they are qualified to do the job? Because they have schmoozed all the right constituents of course. I don't think it's a qualification to have worked in a district office for a member doing all the grunt work. Don't you think successful candidates should have some world experience, that is in the world outside of politics. Being in politics is not a qualification to be a politician or a legislator or a lawmaker whatever you want to call the people that run the government, at least the legislative side.

No, being an insider is not a qualification. Of course (Lynn Swann) being an outsider is not necessarily a qualification either.

Political Bohemian

Imagine if you will a group of politicians running so scared for their jobs that a significant percentage of the lot of them are simply going to retire rather than face the imminent fight.

Imagine working on the inside for such politicians. Part of the Incumbency Protection Squad. Even if you feel you have honed your exclusive cadre to a select few, the bitter taste of the political scene roils up in your gullet from time to time, the taste of your own regurgitations and ghost work for the face of the district.

These fine men and women of the House and Senate may be worthy of the office they hold or they may just be a long-term placeholder until the real member shows up, the person who would pull the sword from the stone and rule wisely the select group of constituents over which they would wield feifdom.

Without an obvious usurper, the electorate returns the same old lot to their same old holes in Albert Hall, or the Assembly floor, no difference. People, not being the sophisticated political animals they think they are, tend to think thusly: throw the bums out, sure, but not my bum. The Legislature as a whole is not the institution of our dreams, but our member is okay, and we'll just go ca chunka and let him back in office.

Will 2006 be any different. Perhaps, and this is the forum to speculate on that.

It is such attitudes that lead to a well above 90 percent incumbency retention rate, not factoring in open seats. It's because they simply don't know who their politician, their lawmaker, really is when it gets down to the nitty gritty politic of it all.

So starts one insider's analysis of the system he sees so closely, and if you are so connected, so close to the sausage factory, or a keen observer through the eyes of the media, participate in the discourse and let us begin the process of enlightening each other to the way things really are, the sad state of affairs that we sometimes let our government slide into when we forget that we have the power over them with our vote, not they over us. Change is at our fingertips, even those of the people who would critique the machine of which they are a small, but meaningful cog.

The Political Bohemian