So if the Republicans are owned by big business but then the people throw them out and replace them with Democrats…and then the Democrats get bought by big business…where’s the change?
I was just reading in USA today how the auto industry has shifted the bulk of its campaign contributions from the Republicans to the Democrats. Their number one concern is keeping fuel economy standards from being raised.
I give up.
things like the environment, global warming, have never been as left-right as the LR debates would have you believe. a lot of the great lakes area democrats are pro-oil, anti-environment politicians. meanwhile, there are some republicans (mccain pops to mind) with decent environmental policies.
I was involved in state government/politics. At one time, I was perusing this site http://www.followthemoney.org/ and looking at organizations and their donations to candidates. I was surprised that many organizations whom I thought were “conservative” were giving serious contributions to Democratic candidates . . . some of which voted very much to the left. And the opposite was also true. Honestly, I couldn’t make any sense of it. Then I looked at it a different way . . . almost all of the contributions went to the candidates that won . . . from ALL organizations. Those that didn’t were close races. In some of those, the organizations gave to both cadidates. I asked a lobbyist about this. He said, “If we give financial support to someone who loses, it’s a total waste of money.” You do realize, the candidates take money from ANYONE who is giving.
Another big surprise to me was that when elected, giving cushy jobs to folks had nothing to do with political ideology . . . it was based on croneyism and nepostism . . . even if it went across party lines.
I know of a case where a legislator did not vote along party lines and voted his conscience. He was a member of the majority party yet was given no perks/good committee postions/staff/parking/etc. when they were given. He was so pissed, he changed parties and two years later won on the other ticket. The other party did the same to him because he had proven he could be disloyal. On the third election, both parties conspired to redraw the district; he ran as an independent and was beaten, never to return.
Rumor has it that one “political family” has promised (and delivered) a certain constituency voting block to whatever candidate paid them them the right price for many years. Last election they were paid by both cadidates for a given office . . . what were the candidates gonna do, tell the election officials? Oops, perhaps they did. One of the “family” memebers is now going to jail for bribery/corruption.
I hear some people say, “our form of government is not perfect, but it is the best.” and think that maybe, that is true. But I also think that they are just repeating some kind of crap that their dad told them, repeated from his dad . . . and so on.
Both sides rotten through and through…or maybe it’s just business as usual. Heard a couple of days ago about how when republican Dennis Hastert was speaker, his son quit whatever he was doing as a job and became a lobbyist. Now Harry Reid suddenly has THREE kids that have become lobbyists. Guess thats money that corporations think is well spent because the kids have the ear of the power player. It stinketh.
Sounds like our pols just suffer from the same sickness as the rest of us Americans, an unhealthy requirement for short term return, immediate gratification; they just get theirs from the corporations that line their pockets and political coffers.
I’d like to pile on a bit more here. I just heard today that our beloved governor of Illinois, a Democrat, decided in the beginning of his term he didn’t want to live in the capital. So he lives in Chicago 3 1/2 hrs away, by car. Of course a 7 hour daily round trip to go to work is to much for governor, so you guessed it, he flies. Back and forth EVERYDAY. Now of course it’s just plane, pun intended, to inconvienant to fly commercial to 2X a day the fire up the private, state funded jet for transport to the toon fo 12K A DAY, 5 freakin’ days a week.
To make matters worse a good portion of his staff is also in Chicago and no they don’t all fly together. So on some days this is repeated 2,3 or more times. Honestly WTF is wrong with our politicians?
~Matt