Getting What We Deserve

I need to get something off my chest. Like so many Americans, I'm exhausted from partisan politics. But I'm more convinced than before that we're reaping what we sowed. This is our fault and we have no-one to blame but ourselves.

I was sitting with some folks at a fundraiser for a good cause (good idea). We started talking about politics (bad idea). I said that regardless of my political inclinations I appreciate a politician like Russ Feingold. He's smart. He's capable. He's principled. He makes decisions based on his assessment of the issues at hand. He actually reads the legislation. If, as his constituents, we don't like the way he votes then we can vote him out of office.

A gentleman at my table told me he was embarrassed and furious that Russ voted against the Patriot Act as a lone voice. He said that if Russ had talked to his constituents he would have understood that he HAD to vote for it. He said that's the politician's job: to vote the way his/her constituents demand.

I'm writing this post to express how profoundly wrong I believe that idea to be. We find ourselves in a political quagmire in no small part due to the fact we've fostered a system in which our candidates become market timers. They use daily, if not hourly, polls to identify the whims and fancies of their constituents. They base their campaigns on their interpretations of the polls. So, as voter opinions change with the weather so too do the "platforms" the candidates are building.

If that's the system we want during the election cycle, so be it. But it absolutely is NOT the job of the elected official to vote as the constituents want while they are in office. I demand that my elected official whose full-time job it is to research, understand and assess the issues make a decision based on his/her understanding and principles.

I expect that the official will vote in a such a way that is a reflection of the representations that they made during the election cycle. They should remain internally consistent. If they don't, I won't vote for them again. Russ Feingold is at least internally consistent.

Please don't misunderstand. This is not about Russ. This isn't an endorsement of his politics. But this is absolutely an endorsement of his kind of politics.

As a representative democracy it is axiomatic that our elected officials represent our interests. But by creating a system of professional politicians we've engineered a democratic (small "d") monster. If the politician needs the job, they will do whatever is necessary to keep it. That includes ideological dithering.

In several weeks we have a chance to pick our next group of representatives. I'm beyond frustrated because I can't seem to identify what the candidates really stand for as individuals. I'm exhausted by relativistic politics. It's not about what candidate A stands firmly for, it's about how that compares to candidate B. And, because they're both market timers, that's all compared to how they read the polls.

Here's what I want from my candidate: tell me how you make decisions. Help me understand your intellectual underpinnings. Give me a roadmap to your fiscal and social policy decision tree. If you have any hard and fast standards that you exalt above all others, then make them clear. In other words, let me understand your baseline.

Just as I believe the Supreme Court is better when balanced by intellectual variety, so too do I believe our representative government is better when multiple ideological baseline voices are heard. This year in my voting decisions I will exalt a clear expression of baseline over specific policy.

If all we want from our representatives are mirrored drones in which we can see our dimly lit and ever-changing reflections, we'll get nothing better than that. But we deserve better. And, it's in our power to demand and receive it.