Majority of R's want 3rd party...D's, not so much

Well, I agree with that. No person or organization should be able to donate millions of dollars to campaigns. The limit should be set at something trivially low (low enough that no one would think it buys them a favor). Like $100, maybe.

barfo

 

That isn't completely correct. They did have some interest in implementing term limits, but in the end they left them out of the constitution.

barfo

 

But the continental congress isn't the us senate.

barfo

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The problem with career senators (or whatever) is they do have a fucking clue about abusing their authority.

And there's nothing wrong with a career politician, as long as he's an alderman, then mayor, then state house member, then governor, then house member, then president (if he gets that far). Term limited at each job.

 

There is a very simple solution to that, and it is already in the constitution. Vote the bum out.

barfo

 

I gotta say I'm with barfo on this one. All a term limit does is limit the ability of someone good to keep doing their job. For those who aren't doing their job, it's the job of the people to vote them out. I'm not ok with limited potential good from happening just because we want to legislate around 51% people who are too ignorant to understand issues.

 

even if it was just one of 537, do you legislate forcing him/her to leave just because you can't trust the populace to not vote for bozos? That's not the way I want laws/policies to be made.

 

so you think that if there weren't term limits, Bush would've been elected in 2008 and 2012 b/c people are too stupid to vote against an incumbent? How many seats changed hands in the 2010 mid-terms? How many are projected to in the 2012s?

Believe me, I'm just as frustrated about bad politicians as you are. My state continually elects a "housemom in tennis shoes" who's routinely voted by staffers and media as the "100th-smartest Senator"...but it's partially b/c Seattle doesn't feel that anyone trotted out against her would represent them (for whatever reason). I also think that there should be some sort of protection against people not doing their jobs (whether it's 100 y/o senators or campaigners or vacillators that don't show up for votes, etc), but I'd almost rather have that than some "good" politician be pushed away b/c an arbitrary threshold was hit.

 

It's hard to beat the bum in an election, since he's legislated all sorts of election laws that favor incumbents. And the bum you throw out gets replaced by an equally bad career politician.

Or the party can raise funds throughout the country and focus effort on helping your bum get reelected. Case in point, Harry Reid kept his job.

 

Out of 435 seats in the house, maybe 80 changed hands. Maybe 1 in 5. In the senate? I'd have to go look up who died or retired.