Vote The Bums In

We say we want change and we vote the status quo. We say we want bipartisanship and we vote for divided government. We say we want agreement yet we look at compromise as weakness. We say we want new leaders and we vote for the incumbent.

For all of our bluster and threats, when it comes to our anti-incumbent rhetoric we really are just all talk. The facts, as persistent as they often tend to be, do not add up to our propaganda. In short, we are all more full of hot air than a Macy’s Day parade balloon.

Alas, “vote the bums back in” should be the rallying cry if we were to be true to our actual voting record.

Our voting habits are even more insidious than just voting for the incumbent. No, not only do we vote for the incumbent in most elections, we also vote overwhelmingly for the candidate for one of the two major political parties (when is the last time a third party candidate was elected President?). At best, the significant difference between these two parties are marginal at best. For anyone with a doubt about this, just measure up our former president’s record with our current president’s.

But, back to our so called “anti-incumbent” furor. We claim to have a 9% approval rating for Congress. Yet, our approval rating in reality hovers at closer to 90%.

Ninety percent. That is the rate at which our incumbents will win re-election, give or take a few percentage points. Even in the hotly contested elections of 2010 when we were in the midst of an economic collapse, the incumbent trounced his or her competition. In the 2010 Congressional elections, 85% of incumbents running for re-election in the House of Representatives won re-election. In the United States Senate, 84 percent of the incumbents were punished with a re-election. And those were during times of so called “anti-incumbent” fervor.

In fact, since 1964, the incumbent re-election rate has never dipped below 50%. In the 1980 election, the incumbent re-election rate reached 55% in the Senate. Mind you, that was after a less than dazzling Carter administration where people were fed up with their leaders.

It’s even harder to win against an incumbent in the House. Since 1964, the lowest the re-election rate for the incumbent has been 85% (in 1970 and 2010 rspectively). In the previous 24 elections for the House (they go up for re-election every 2 years), the re-election rate for the incumbent has been 90% or higher 17 times. Eighty five to 90%; that’s not bad odds.

These numbers just illustrate how we approve of our leaders (why else would we keep voting them back in?) and how married we are to the two party system. It really is indicative of who we are and just how pervasive own contradictory ways are. We often say we will do one thing and do something quite different frequently in our everyday lives. We vow to lose weight before the new year or we vow to make this marriage last. Both of these vows rarely seem to stick. Whenever the least amount of effort, such as helping campaigns for third party candidates, or thought, such as inquiring about third party candidates, enters the equation we are woefully inadequate to our vows. That is what is at the root of all of this

Yes, incumbent enjoy advantages such as name recognition (which many derisively argue is a detriment these days), money from lobbyists and the backing of their party cronies. Yet, we control two things much more powerful: independent thought and the vote. No one can literally make you vote for one or another candidate. Yet, every election we do so. Overwhelmingly, voters vote the candidate with the D or the R next to their names. For all of their talk about being “independent” and not being sheep they follow the dinner bells to their own slaughter much like sheep. In typical American fashion, they say one thing (“vote them all out”) yet they do the opposite (overwhelmingly vote them back into office).

What of third party candidates? Two things happen when you suggest voting third party. The third party candidate is immediately considered “unwinnable”, as though that was any relevant reason for not exercising your most precious right for the most qualified person . Secondly, the person is roundly dismissed as being a nut or out of the loop, as though that was any rational reason for not casting a vote vote for them. But, the real reason for casting them in such light is a part of a much grander scheme. The party elites write the script and the sheepish voters willingly read it. In every election voters are warned to not “throw away their vote” for a third party candidate. Yet what people fail to realize is that if all of us seriously considered third party candidates they would be legitimately valid candidates and no such argument would hold water. It is our own fault for listening to such noise and, even worse, agreeing. How the important process of voting is marginalized and willingly limited by the very same people who want “change” is perplexing.

So, votes the bums back in. And when we do, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.