February 11, 2012
Saturday AM

Those are some decent ideas, but your contention that the current congress won't initiate them is correct as well. It will take the citizens stop voting in the same status qua to replace congress. Getting people to run is a hard thing. Having run for local office I can tell you that it can feel like getting beat up at times, and we play pretty nice here in Ketchikan most of the time. On a state level (To get into the US Congress), its a whole new level, and the money required is exponentially greater. Here in alaska with Less than a million voters, its not so bad, but still requires getting around the state a lot, and being able to campaign while not working (so having your living expenses covered.) This is part of the reason why we end up with the same type of people in office, wealthy people who have made something of themselves in business or otherwise (For better or worse).

If you stop and think about it, it would be nearly impossible for a person with a 9-5 job to quit their job to put a real campaign together if they weren't rich, had a rich family, or rich sponsor (corporate etc). We want the government to be of the people, but we are not willing to vote for an underdog, or a regular working person.

We like to blame congress and the various presidents, but really we should be looking in the mirror, because not only do we elect them, but we are also complacent in allowing them to continually twist what we say into what they want. Yes the media is to blame as well, but we support the media by watching, mindlessly often.

I'd love to see a candidate that was young (25 is the minimum age for Representative, 30 for Senator), from a middle class background, and that was more in favor of working towards reducing government, increasing personal freedoms - as opposed to the opposite. I take that back. I have seen those candidates, but I see them lose mostly, or be called a kook, long shot, etc. thus declaring them defeated before the vote begins.

My 2 cents.

Tyrell Rettke
rettke [at] kpunet.net
Ketchikan, AK

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