Connecting the Dots

In the USA change is what propelled Barack Obama to win the Presidency. That desire to have change is true today as it was during the presidential campaign. The problem is it can only come a piece at a time because of the Constitution.

If you go and have the oil changed in your car but do not drain the oil pan completely, the new oil will simply be polluted with the old oil. The same is true where you do not completely clean out the old whatever before putting in the new whatever. It only is common sense to do this.

But inside the Washington beltway things do not happen that way. The US House of Representatives is a two year term and everyone is voted in or out at the same time. The US Senate is a 6 year term and 1/3 of the Senate comes up for reelection every 2 years. So no matter what election year, 2/3 of the Senate is not running for office. As a result they act as the dirty oil that does not get drained.

Looking at how Americans have been voting over the last 20 years, there is one word that fits for every election. The word is not anger, the word is frustration. There is a clear desire to completely replace everyone from the President right on down to the freshman Congressmen and Senators. In short Americans want to start from scratch.

Even that the democrats had a super majority in the Senate, the Republicans did their best to slow things down particularly with the health care bill without truly involving themselves. This is the behavior Americans are angry at. There clearly is a self serving agenda being displayed, and there is absolutely no doubt that is the core of the frustration Americans are showing in the way they are voting. They want the self serving politicians out and a fresh lot across the board to avoid the cross pollination that will ultimately happen as the old politicians introduce the new politicians to various political contributors with agendas.

The other thing is it is very obvious and particularly with the Republicans (and they openly admit it) is they have lost touch with the people. Even now as some Republicans try to capture the voters frustration energy, they show little desire to change and are simply trying to harness that energy to get back to what they were doing. With each election cycle it seems Americans are saying ‘Well lets see what this does’ as they attempt to tinker to get around the frustration.

One of the most frustrated Americans is President Obama. Looking back at the flavor of his weekly addresses (that are available on podcast) you can see what he faces. Recently he seems to be trying to embarrass the politicians that are mostly Republican by bypassing the journalist and their spin by using live TV as a medium. The fact that he has gone this far to give the self-serving politicians their own hanging rope says a lot about the level of frustration.