I hope Weiner goes into the private sector

[hfojvt]

He has been good at delivering a progressive message, but I think the message should be more important than the messenger. Why can't somebody else step up a deliver the same message?

Regardless of politics, I disagree with Weiner's career trajectory. He has never worked in the private sector. After college he was an aide to Schumer. Then ran for city council and won (it probably helps to be connected to a Congressman, no?). Then after being on the city council for seven years, he ran for Congress and has been in Congress now for 7 terms. Given the way the political world works, he can probably be in Congress for as long as he wants to be. For another 16 terms if he lives that long.

He is a leading contender, or was, to be mayor of New York, and then maybe he would run for Senate or Governor. Granted, he would probably make a better Mayor than Bloomberg and a better Governor than Cuomo if he could keep from pulling a Spitzer.

My objection is to career politicians. Maybe it is naive, but I have this image of a Democracy where carpenters and teachers and mechanics and factory workers who run for office, serve a few terms and then go back into teaching or whatever. Granted, our democracy has probably never worked that way, although I did have a distant relative who was Governor of Vermont and in a later census he is listed as a farmer.

How many terms is enough? Does a career politician really give us the best representation? Or do they move in elite circles with powerful fund-raisers and other elected bigshots?

Unfortunately, Dennis Kucinich is another example. He will be 66 in 2012 and has served 8 terms in Congress. Instead of retiring, he is looking to run again. How many terms is enough? Why can't somebody else carry a progressive message?

Not that Democrats are the only examples of this. Brownback has been in politics most of his life. Branstad has been Governor of Iowa for about 6 terms. Dale Shultz has been in the Wisconsin State Senate for probably 16 years and will probably be running for the seat Tammy Baldwin is in, depending on redistricting and if she runs for the Senate (again, after 7 terms in the House and 6 years in the State Legislature and 8 years on the County Board). These people keep their jobs not necessarily by serving their constituents well, but by virtue of their celebrity status and their campaign war chests and connections to donors.

Because it's Weiner or Kucinich I expect to get flamed, but does anyone else dislike the idea of career politicians and permanent office holders, even if those permanent office holders are very progressive?

[wickerwoman]

1. The opposite for me.

I dislike the idea of people running back and forth between industry and regulatory functions.

A huge part of the current economic crisis traces back to all the Goldman Sachs cronies in the Fed and on Bush, Clinton and Obama's cabinets.

Also a horrible idea to put energy industry stooges into government positions and coal and timber shills into the EPA, and on and on.

Better a career politicians than someone with an obvious conflict of interest either coming into office or going out of it.

[hfojvt]

5. many of those are not elected positions

and the problem sorta becomes when a politician uses their fame or power or connections to get themselves a cushy job.

You seem to be imagining only corporate bigshots being elected to office, which, yeah, is probably how it would work since they would have the personal fortunes and connections to other rich people to buy a powerful campaign. Which might be less relevant if we had a media that did its job.

I am imagining members of he working class, perhaps the more intelligent and eloquent members of the working class.

You point out that our current system did not prevent those cronies from getting into power, so why would more turnover make things worse?

[wickerwoman]

9. Maybe I'm naive,

but I see civil service as a calling. It's not something you do for a few years and then go back to your "real" job. Public policy is difficult, it's nuanced, it takes years to learn how to do well and the consequences of screwing it up are very real and serious.

Mao Zedong wanted a country run by farmers because their "native wisdom" would allow them to make better decisions than academics and career politicians. 46 million famine victims later, Deng Xiaoping managed to convince the party that maybe its better to have people who know what the fuck they're doing pulling the levers.

This is why I oppose term limits. If someone is good at their job, and their constituents are happy with what they've been accomplishing, why should they be chucked out in favor of someone who doesn't have the experience to do the job well?

More turnover makes things worse because it reduces the average level of competence of our elected officials. And it increases the likelihood of corruption because if you're only slumming it in public service for a few years until you can get out and make real money in industry, then there is no motivation for you to enact legislation that favors anyone but you.

How dedicated would you be to your job if you knew that, regardless of your performance, you were going to be fired in two years? Would you slave away to create value for the company or would you use the opportunity to learn how to game the system so you could exploit it in your next job?

[hfojvt]

10. that's the argument incumbents make

but it has not stopped our current incumbentocracy from voting for some really dumb public policy, unless you approve of the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq and the Bush tax cuts.

Yes, a term limit does sorta make people unaccountable for their last term. But they are sorta unaccountable now because they are almost impossible to defeat. And even after they get defeated, either the President or big corporations take care of them anyway. Plus, why doesn't the same argument work for a President who is limited to two terms?

My thinking is that a legislature needs to look at public policy and ask themselves "how is this gonna impact factory workers in my district?" "How is it gonna impact teachers, plumbers, mechanics, farmers, retail workers, small businesspeople?" Well, who can better evaluate something like that than an actual teacher, plumber, mechanic, etc.? Instead, it seems to me like the career politician generally asks, or thinks, how is this gonna impact the other big-shots in my district? They have made a career out of being a big-shot so they think like a big-shot. It becomes much harder for them to think like an ordinary American, or to give a crap about ordinary Americans.

The incumbents don't win re-election because the constituents are happy with their job performance. They win re-election because they have name recognition, because they get to spend tax dollars to mail to everyone in the district telling them what a great job they are doing and how bad the other side is, and because they spend two years building up a million dollar campaign war chest, often funded by rich people from outside the district. In my district, the incumbent writes a weekly column in several papers, as I found out when I travelled the district and bought papers where I went. And the newly elected Senator had a recent column in my local paper touting the necessity for budget cuts before raising the debt ceiling.

My incumbent Republican Congresswoman is in her second term now and before that she was State Treasurer for 8 years and before that was in the legislature, but I know a number of local Republicans that I would consider to be much better as Congresspeople because they seem to have much more integrity than she does. Her supposed experience does not count for much in my eyes.

[MyrnaLoy]

2. he has the tools for

porn

[monmouth]

3. I thought he wanted to run for NY Mayor...n/t

[hfojvt]

6. I think he already has

but that would still be a political office.

The great thing about the Mayor's race is that Weiner can run for Mayor in the odd years, and if he loses, he can still run for "his" seat in the next even year. Just like he did the last time. Either way, he stays in a position of fame and power.

And it has been said, that 'power corrupts'.

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. I predict msnBS personality within 5 years time.

[hfojvt]

8. that's the thing

these people are supposed to 'represent' the ordinary American - the majority of us. Yet their career path is "fame and money and power" to "fame and money and power".

I'd just like to see the reality police show up and say "step away from the spotlight".

[Mass]

7. You are probably the first poster with a valid criticism of Wiener (and many other ones,

Democrats and Republicans). It is a real issue and we should care about this.