Assumed Position

Call me cranky but considering how the U.S. Congress has thrown the middle class under the economic bus for the past thirty years I think it's about time we started demanding candidates that better represent the average American instead of the average oil magnate. Questions like "How many homes do you own?" or "What is your net worth?" or "Have you ever slapped a servant?" should be asked right along with the candidate's opinions on abortion, education, or bombing Iran.

Money, and the acquisition thereof, should not be a prime criteria when selecting someone to run the country. Government is not a business and it shouldn't be run like a business. It's boring, bureaucratic tedium. It's bill paying and check writing and occasionally altering the rules to make life for the average American a bit easier. At least in theory.

Currently we have a Republican congressmen, Darrel Issa, occupying office space in Washington because he got rich selling auto alarms, and consequently spent tens of millions of his own fortune, a pittance for him, running for office. More power to him for marketing a desirable product but that's not good training for government. (He's currently doing all he can to kill the Constitutionally-mandated U.S. Post Office, just so that the rest of us get to pay FedEx $25 to deliver a letter to your grandma.)

Think about that... what else works that way? Could Mr. Issa, for example, waltz into a hospital and say "Hey! I'm rich! I'm a doctor now! Do with have any patients with expensive diseases and good insurance?"

Only in politics, folks.

Ideally we should give greater credence to career politicians, men and women who work their way up through the ranks from local city positions to state offices to Washington, D.C., all based on performance, and not how many attack ads they can afford to run.

=Lefty=