The other day I heard some Talking Head on CNN puzzling over why, if Congress has an approval rating two points below Ebola, so many of us will soon re-elect our same Congressperson. I don't see why that's such a mystery. We may hate the institution as a whole but we can only vote for our guy or gal and we may well be satisfied with him or her.
More to the point, we may be satisfied with the party he or she represents. I'm a Democrat and while there was a time in the past I could and did vote for Republicans, I don't think that could happen today. Today, for a Republican to get my vote, a candidate would have to move to the center in a way that would probably make him or her unpalatable to too many Republicans. You can't win an election in this country when you lose votes from your party and count on members of the opposition party.
And even if a Republican did say the things that might get me to vote for him/her, what are the chances of that person going to Washington and not toeing the party line? Or having any power?
Now, if it turned out that the Democratic candidate had a history of felonies and sex crimes…well, I'd probably vote against that person or perhaps not vote for anyone. But in the absence of something like that, I'm kinda stuck voting for the Democrat. If I want to vote for someone who has a chance of winning, at least.
(I understand the premise of voting for Independents but I don't think it works, at least at the Congressional level. I don't think it sends a message to anyone. I don't think it empowers future candidacies. I think it has the same impact as not voting and I wish that wasn't the case. And anyway, there are no Independents on my ballot in this election — not for Congress, not for Governor, not for Lieutenant Governor, etc.)
So: My choice on this ballot is the Democrat or the Republican. If the Democrat was still Henry Waxman, I'd vote for him because I was actually quite happy with Henry Waxman. I told pollsters I had a low opinion of Congress but I had a high opinion of Henry Waxman.
Since it's now Ted Lieu running with the "D" after his name, I'm voting for Ted Lieu. His G.O.P. opponent, Elan Carr, has a very vague platform that suggests he's for a lots of things that Democrats oppose but is trying not to admit that in a heavily-Democratic precinct. My guess is he has about the same chance of winning as I do…and I'm not even running.
And if he did win, he'd go to Washington and vote the way the Republican leadership told him to vote. That's kind of what I'm voting against. I'm against giving them another vote in Congress.
I don't like any of this. I'd like to think I could vote for a person who'd cross the aisle and side with the other team when they're right, as other teams sometimes are. But I don't think there is such a person on my ballot so I have to just vote the party. Which is what everyone does these days, which is why we keep sending the same people back to a Congress we hate.