Senate Power Competition 2006
Deborah Venable
08/29/06
We’re
a little over 2 months out from the mid-term elections now, so I thought it
might be interesting to start poking around in the various races for some of
those offices of power in the legislative branch of the federal government and
see what there is to see. Since we
still have to contend with the seventeenth amendment, it is up to we, the
people, to elect the representatives to the U.S. Senate. This is unfortunate, especially since the
founders were far more aware of the dangers this would pose when they set up
the government in the first place, but deal with it we must. If you need an in-depth explanation as to
why I say this, read here.
I
happen to live in one of seventeen states where neither of the U.S. Senators is
up for re-election in 2006. Within the
balance of the fifty states, however, there are races currently going on for
Senate power. In far too many of these
“races” analysts who seem to know consider the incumbents to be “safe”
regardless of whether or not they have serious opponents. Pitiful that the American voting public is
so transparent and predictable, isn’t it?
Taking
a closer look at some of these “safe” candidates we find that 10 of these seats
are held by Democrats and 6 are held by Republicans. Please note that this data is textually stated as 9 safe Democrat
seats and 7 safe Republican seats on at least one site, but a close examination
of the charted data in the same site produced the following breakdown:
Dianne
Feinstein,
Democrat from California, is up for a third term; Tom Carpenter, Democrat from Delaware, up for a second term; Bill Nelson, Democrat from Florida, up for second term; Daniel Akaka, Democrat from Hawaii, up for a third term; Edward Kennedy, Democrat from Massachusetts, up for an ungodly eighth term; Jeff Bingaman, Democrat from New Mexico, up for a fifth term; Hillary Clinton, Democrat from New York, up for a second term; Kent Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota, up for a fourth term; Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, up for an ungodly ninth term; and Herb Kohl, Democrat from Wisconsin, up for a fourth term; these are those
10 “safe” Democrat seats.
Dick
Lugar, Republican from
Indiana, is up for a sixth term; Olympia Snowe,
Republican from Maine, up for a third term; Trent Lott,
Republican from Mississippi, up for a fourth term; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican from Texas, up for a third term; Orrin Hatch, Republican from Utah, up for a sixth term; and Craig Thomas, Republican from Wyoming, up for a third term; these are the 6
“safe” Republican seats.
How
many people reading this believe that ANY seat in the United States Senate
should be dubbed “safe” by anyone, anywhere in an election year? How many people reading this believe that
any candidate should EVER be up for re-election to the United States Senate for
more than a couple of terms? I’d be
interested in actual responses to these questions please.
Corruption,
thy name is continual incumbency – especially the “safe” kind!
One
state has a retiring Republican senator – Bill Frist
from Tennessee, after serving 2 terms.
Two states have retiring Democrat senators – Mark Dayton from Minnesota, after serving only one term, and Paul Sarbanes from Maryland, after serving 5 terms. Then, of course, we have good old Vermont’s “Jumping Jim Jeffords” as Rush Limbaugh so affectionately refers to
him, who is also retiring as the only independent seat holder. You may remember that he was elected as a
Republican and then “jumped” from the Republican Party, so he could be an
independent and vote with the Democrats.
(We haven’t been able to figure out just what is in the water up there
in Vermont, but that is another story I guess.) Bernie
Sanders
is “favored” by 94% to win this seat.
He is described as an “independent and self-described socialist,”
who probably will not be opposed by the Democrats. He is currently serving in the U.S. House of Representatives as
Vermont’s only representative – first elected in 1990. (It’s gotta be the water, folks.)
Now, we could do further analysis on the Senate races to
find that seven of the “unsafe” seats are held by Democrats and nine are held
by Republicans. Currently the Senate
seats fifty-five Republicans, forty-four Democrats, and Jeffords, (the
independent Democrat.) Thitry-three of
the total seats are up for re-election in 2006. (The others are REALLY safe for another 2 to 4 years.) As always the focus is on which party will
“control” the Senate after the election – not which candidates would best
represent the interests of their STATES in the only equally represented
(regardless of population) branch of the federal government. Once again, our Founders are rolling over in
their graves I’m sure.
Party control is everything, yet party control means
nothing in securing the individual or states’ rights of a self-governing
society. Party control is the machinery
that drives an ineffective government.
Individual integrity should be the only thing that matters to voters (or
states) choosing their representatives, and party platforms should be built
reflecting the different values of the various constituents. Instead, party platforms are a patchwork of
rotten boards in many cases, and God only knows how they support anyone with
individual integrity. Even that
wonderful sounding “independent” label that some would proudly wear, candidates
and voters alike, means nothing without the “leaning” on one party platform or
another while answering to constituents in that party.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that political parties serve a
purpose of sorts. The two main
political parties should accurately represent the simplistic differences
between left and right, liberal and conservative, socialist and
capitalist. Things were never really
simplistic though. These sides have
always bled over into each other in many people’s views. One could be a social liberal and a fiscal
conservative for instance, or even vice versa –a social conservative and a fiscal
liberal. The problem is that the
platforms of political parties are supposed to draw clear lines between
conservative and liberal for a majority of issues, and if one could not fit
themselves onto such a platform, then he or she could look outside the party
for representation. The over abundance
of political parties nowadays is indicative not only of the overall confusion
of most folks to take a side and stick to it, but also of the two main parties
themselves to take a side and stick to it.
And let’s make it real clear here that there is no such thing in modern
politics as an “independent.”
What we find now is a compulsion to choose a political
party based on how that party defines itself most of the time. I’ll pick on the Republican Party here, (my
own party of choice), to illustrate the confusion. Those of us who believe in smaller government, individual
responsibility, and Constitutionally guaranteed liberties must be drawn to the
platforms of the Republican Party.
However, what we find now is more than a few “loose boards” – especially
in the smaller governement category.
Republicans have stretched their values to the limit to accommodate
Democrat Party philosophies on government spending, even though Democrats are
constantly lambasting Republicans for not spending enough. Where does it all end?
The basic differences in this election seems to lie in
the attitude toward how to fight terrorism and secure our own country. Here again, Republicans are hard pressed to
present a united front in either of these two areas. The actions of the Republican controlled executive branch have
left more than a few of us scratching our heads – mainly on the issues of
national security and border control.
The Democrats keep pinging on the war on terrorism and how badly it is
going, (even though it really isn’t) and miss the boat on securing the country
against invasions currently going on via border insecurity. In fact, the Democrats were in power when so
much of our security was literally going down the tubes that any fight to
secure anything now comes off sounding more than a little bogus.
The bottom line strategy of the Democrats for this
election is simply to oppose the administration in ANYTHING it tries to
accomplish, oppose the Republican legislative strategy to accomplish ANYTHING
and ride the wave of public opinion to the shores of Democrat Party control in
all branches as soon as possible. (This
is not a supposition on my part – you can check it out for yourself.)
Meanwhile, back to the upcoming struggle for Senate Power
in 2006 – the bottom line is that many candidates for the Senate are seen as
non-worthy opponents by both parties.
If you happen to live in a state with one of these non-worthies on your
ballot, perhaps you can make a difference by making your own interpretations as
to their worthiness as your state’s potential representative. Just once I’d like to see the voters
outsmart the analysts and vote their well-researched consciences instead of
their predictable popularity polling data.
It is bad enough that incumbancy is a disease within the
other house of legislative government, which is supposed to be elected
by the people for a term of two years, but when the watch dog of the states’
rights house of the legislature, elected for six year terms for a very good
purpose, is also propelled by incumbancy, we have a big problem, folks. If you really want to clean up the
government, start by taking a better look at what you are electing.
But what I fear will happen is that the election results
will more than likely reflect the numbers of people who do NOT vote this fall
out of disgust, a false sense of revenge on the party they have supported in
the past, or simply that worst of all afflictions in our self-governing
society, apathy and ignorance.