Friday, November 09, 2007

When Voter Apathy Turns To Anger

As we see the approval numbers that Congress is pulling in these days, we see that voters are not a bit happy with the performance of their elected officials. As I reported from the heartland this week, the voters were not happy with their leaders in Indianapolis and in turn, they demanded change at the ballot box. I stated in one of my several posts on the Indy municipal election, this was a microcosm of the mood and the feelings of the entire nation.

What the nation's leaders need to desperately realize is something they may not realize, until they are made to realize it. People did not vote for the Democrats, they voted against the GOP. The same thing happened in Indy four years ago. The GOP controlled the city's legislature, they people had enough of their mismanagement and voted for change by voting them out and giving the Dems a chance.

The local Dems, not unlike the national, promised that a new crew would do better and would end the corruption. But what we got here and what we still see in Washington is a worse case situation, much worse. The Dems have taken our support lightly. They have thumbed their noses at the electorate. It now worse, than before.

Today, it apparent to me that as a nation, if we will thumb our noses at them when it's time to vote, we can and will send them back to wherever they came from and replace them with someone else. There is nothing more satisfying than to send a corrupt and/or incompetent politician a clear message, by putting them out of work.

If you doubt my thesis, just watch the news articles and op-eds in the coming months. A good place to start is with this piece, right here.

There will be more like this one, I am sure. I know I plan to say up on it, I would love nothing more than to see an anti-incumbent sentiment swell to the point that something actually gets done. More dissatisfaction will grow and it will manifest itself, at the ballot box.

One of the news talk shows here locally credited the local bloggers for helping get the new mayor elected, since he had no money to get his message out. If this can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

3 comments:

A.C. McCloud said...

It's actually a very interesting time in history--both sides have managed to screw the pooch so equally bad that nobody is satisfied. The Huffpo headline this morning was that Biden, Obama, Clinton and Dodd ALL took a pass on the Mukasey vote, ie, they didn't cast a vote against torture.

I hope you're right about the voters just tossing them all out and starting over but frankly I'm concerned more about them taking matters into their own hands at some point.

LA Sunset said...

//but frankly I'm concerned more about them taking matters into their own hands at some point.//

them = voters? or the politicians?

A.C. McCloud said...

I wouldn't call them voters, more like extremists.