Chiming in with My Two Cents

Not that there isn't a dearth of political pundits discussing these two topics, but I wanted to throw in my two thoughts about the recent political events that have occurred - the election of Scott Brown as the new Massachusetts senator and the Supreme Court's decision to repeal the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation so that corporations may now contribute directly to candidates' election campaigns - mainly because I can't do so without having a contentious discussion with my father :). My blog is thus the perfect venue to vent my thoughts :).

First, I have to admit that I was kind of surprised that Massachusetts of all states elected a Republican to replace the "Lion of the Senate".  I don't know if I agree that it was an election referendum on Obama's presidency thus far, or if it was more of the way of the American people to elect parties to balance each other out in the Congress. The political institution was designed by the founding fathers to be thus so - no one party would ever gain a significant advantage over another for any significant amount of time.  And the voters throughout the centuries have born this out - with this election as the most recent example.  Whether or not this permanently derails the health care legislation currently being pushed through the Congress will remain to be seen.

As to the Supreme Court's repeal of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, I do feel like this is a setback.  But according to a Yahoo! News story that I came across shortly after this broke, corporation CEOs want candidates to leave them alone and quit soliciting them for money.  I also believe that candidates will find that the constituents that they hope to reach with their inordinate amounts of money already will tire quickly of them and vote against them.  The danger lies in the possibility of good political candidates being snuffed out because they don't have money to get their message out.  Perhaps the proliferation of new media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools, will allow these candidates to be innovative and use these free tools to spread their message.  It will interesting to see how it affects the coming elections...that is if I'm even interested in the coming elections.  For I really do detest the inanity and bureaucracy of anything to do with government - a system that is designed to hinder ANYTHING of worth to be done.  Which is why I will stick with the private sector - the only place that moves and changes anything, in my opinion!

And on a completely different note, I am very excited for a Saints and Colts Super Bowl.  It will hopefully be a great one!