Whitehall -
I’m afraid that that even a “conservative sweep” in 2010 Congressional elections would, under the current party system, be at best a case of new wine, old wineskins.
The GOP leadership and party operatives, who are a large part of the problem, are going to want to “own” any conservative shift in Congress. There’s a trust deficit between conservative GOP voters and GOP leaders and pols. Even if we *did* elect a bunch of Republicans to Congress in 2010 and retook the House … how do we, the voters, know that they, the newly elected, would do what we sent them there to do? More fundamentally, do we even agree on what we would be sending them there to do? Is there a specific, articulated list? How do we know they wouldn’t get chewed up by the DC system … or turned by it?
Pardon my skepticism and my asterisked French. But before I vote for another g****mn one of those people to go to Washington I really feel like I ought to demand a legal contract articulating specifically what types of bills they are authorized to vote for or against, their pledge to request no earmarks and to vote against any and all earmarked bills, a term limit pledge, and finally a clause in the contract allowing us the undersigned voters to launch a class action lawsuit against said elected official should he/she breach the terms of the contract, with the personal property of said elected official at stake in any potential lawsuit.
The 95% incumbency reelection rate in Congress is an overwhelming temptation to aspiring miscreants and would-be pork kings. They know that if they can just get in, it’s virtually a job for life, and they need have very little fear of average voters as long as they game the system the way their peers have legislated the system to be gamed.
In other words … I don’t think they think we will hold them accountable (vote them out) if they violate their campaign promises. Because, most of the time, we don’t or can’t.
Hence, the contract. If they aren’t afraid of my vote, maybe they will be afraid of my lawyer.
