re-election of current Congress peeps

[no one]

How many congressman are gonna find themselves without a congressional job due to the so called do nothing' label or the current behavior with the government shutdown and (my anticipation) of the debt ceiling fiasco. I am sure there will be a close eye on this post for out of bounds comments. So is the next election going to reflect current behavior - significantly?

[jazzcyclist]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

I predict this thread will get locked in less than 15 posts.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, we were exactly 15 posts into the last thread of this type before beebee could no longer resist his urge to poison it.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=51992

[JumboElliott]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

No. Nothing will change. Anyone notice how things have taken a serious turn for the worse since Joe Biden was thrust into the background by Harry Reid?

[jhc68]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

I say 10 posts, max. Even counting the three posts conjecturing @ how many posts the thread will live.

[gh]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

I predict this thread will get locked in less than 15 posts....

As I noted to DrJay the other day, nothing guarantees the locking of a thread more than the premature assessment that the thread is doomed. Nothing like drawing the mods' attention to the subject!

As always, I remain confident that one day we'll have a safe and sane discussion about political science, which is fine, as opposed to partisan politics.

[odelltrclan]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

How many congressman are gonna find themselves without a congressional job ?

Hopefully many. Term Limits!!! Too many career politicians who are more interested in their prestige and careers than their constituents that put them there.

[Jim Rorick]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

Living all my life in California (which has had term limits on state offices for quite awhile and which may indeed have created the impetus for the idea nationwide), I'd say that term limits don't work. It only means that corrupt politicians have to be even more corrupt - they only have 6-8 years to get their money - than their Congressional counterparts, who can take their sweet time reaming the public. Until the public starts to educate itself to what the govt. is actually doing and not doing (and a more competent and responsible press would really be a help here), nothing much will improve, term limits or not. And the old phrase: "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" also applies here.

[bambam]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

I predict this thread will get locked in less than 15 posts.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, we were exactly 15 posts into the last thread of this type before beebee could no longer resist his urge to poison it.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=51992

Maybe we should just do an over/under on how long it will take to get this thread banned? I'll go for 12 posts.

[bambam]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

political science

Political science - now that's an oxymoron if ever there was one.

[BillVol]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

Nothing will change because the American people are dumb. Most don't vote anyhow. The ones that do are largely stupid. Incumbents have a huge advantage. People vote on name recognition.

[bambam]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

Nothing will change because the American people are dumb. Most don't vote anyhow. The ones that do are largely stupid. Incumbents have a huge advantage. People vote on name recognition.

One of my partner's wife was elected to NC Legislature last year for the first time, and has to run again next year. He was describing to me how huge the advantage is for the incumbents in a race. You would have to be an idiot not to win in that situation per my partner. Unfortunately that might describe most of Congress.

[jazzcyclist]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

The biggest problem that I see is that Congress, most of whom can't afford to finance their campaign themselves, depends so heavily on complete strangers for campaign funds, that only the most craven people are motivated to run for Congress. I read Colin Powell's biography My American Journey, and one of the things that he mentioned when discussing his decision not to run for President, was the fact that he felt nauseated by the idea of going to complete strangers and people he didn't even like and begging them for money. Anyone who can get past this nausea has suspect moral principles IMO, and keep in mind that unlike the folks in the Senate who are elected for six-year terms, the members of the House must run every two years.

[jeremyp]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

The problem can only be fixed when the procedures of our democracy are changed. Gerrymandering needs to be taken out of the hands of politicians ( I believe California has done so), and procedures that allow a minority to dictate or hold up action must be changed. How many times do we have to hear that one person, or one small group, is the problem? Frankly there was a part of me that wished that we could have experienced the debacle that would have occurred had we not raised the debt ceiling, because the government shut down affected a minority. Living, rather than imagining, chaos brings change.

[JumboElliott]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

Why are we holding up a state where nearly a quarter of the citizens are below the poverty line as some sort of model for the rest of the nation on how to run a government?

[user4]

Re: re-election of current Congress peeps

Why are we holding up a state where nearly a quarter of the citizens are below the poverty line as some sort of model for the rest of the nation on how to run a government?

Because CA has mastered the art of producing a tremendous volume of economic activity in part due to the genius of simply giving people cash that have the ambition and will to spend it.