This is what happens when you sit out elections

October 09, 2013|By Charles M. Madigan
  • A lone worker passes by the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington.
A lone worker passes by the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. (JASON REED / REUTERS)

One might argue there are performance reviews for members of Congress every two years, when it's time to run for re-election. This is not the case.

Somehow, public office at the congressional level has drifted so far from shore that it no longer looks at all like the ideal — a body of elected representatives working in the public interest.

What it has become is a body of elected representatives working their own individual interests. It's not so much a "The public be damned" approach as it is a "Much of the public be damned but not the little sliver that supports us!"

Their performance review is conducted by the thin slab of true believers who actually show up for elections. Calmer minds, perhaps, sit these events out, leaving the day to be carried by folks who are a few clicks off center on the policy scale.

This is a consequence of not paying attention to detail in elections that are not about presidents. In presidential years, the nation bumps around with all kinds of information, true or not true, that helps make its decision. The turnout is huge, big enough to make a small "d" democrat proud.

The media never shut up. The blabbers blabber at their blabbering best. Pollsters poll people to find out how they feel about polling.

At its worst, that process will allow one of those "Barack-Obama-is-a-Muslim-Kenyan" thoughts to drift on the wind for weeks. But eventually, it gets run to ground and eliminated from the list of concerns, at least for rational people.

The irrational ones get to join the "Hillary killed Vince Foster" lobby and wait impatiently for 2016, when media pay attention to them again.

That is not the case in those "out" year elections that happen between the presidential contests. Those are local, local, local events with not very much participation (compared to presidential contests) so other factors come into play.

They don't get much media scrutiny.

You always can find bloggers who label candidate so-and-so a whack job, but that's not serious, outcome-changing coverage. Besides, many people have decided media can only tell them what they want to hear, even if it reflects a reality that would work only on Venus.

In congressional elections, particularly in primaries, you can be as crazed as an outhouse rat and still win because there are plenty of other outhouse rats available to join you in your studied craziness. Maybe you are loud enough and loony enough to draw a majority of votes in a primary because you have sold a supportive electorate on your argument that aliens are a threat to democracy or that gay people are undermining marriage.

The fact that the United States was built on the backs of immigrants escapes these people, who perhaps also view gayness as an optional behavior that can be changed with just the right concoction of guilt, finger waggling and holy water.

It's not hard to see how this process draws a little army of people who believe (as opponents have always believed) that national health care is a big step toward making America a socialist republic.

Bingo, they are elected and carry that thought right onto the floor of the U.S. House.

Which is where we are at just this minute.

A big chunk of government has been switched off not because of Congress' failure to resolve some budget problems. That's just the effect. The real reason is the election process, with congressional districts so gerrymandered that there's no hope for serious challengers to the status quo, even if the status quo creates problems for everyone.

The important word in that thought is "serious."

And once one of those flaky folks is in office, it's like having a cash machine that works backward. A special interest pops up, pushes a button next to what it wants and inserts money. Suddenly, Michele Bachmann is getting attention. Why?

Just now, stalling, getting rid of, defunding, denuding — whatever — Obamacare is the price these banana Republicans (not my phrase but I wish it were) want to charge just to get them to do their job again. That is their job, after all, funding government, keeping the train on the tracks.

Hence, it's time for a real performance review with consequences.

Most of the people who are causing this problem are from what are perceived to be "safe" congressional districts. They don't face much of a threat when election time rolls around. Most folks don't vote, and those who do carry the day.

If that electorate contains too many people with unusual thoughts about liberal conspiracies and creeping socialism, well, they are going to go for the candidate who reflects their own peculiar perspectives.

See where that takes you?

The strongest conclusion you can reach about this problem is that what should disappear is the idea of "safe" congressional districts. That will not be easy because the people who control the levers in that game are driven by self-interest, not public interest.

The ideal would be to describe congressional races as performance reviews and then get everyone to actually review performance. The folks behind this debacle would get a dismissal notice.

But we are generally not that hot about our politics, despite the noise it creates, until something awful happens.

If a level of lunacy shows up that becomes so extreme that even the indifferent people inform themselves, then get out of their chairs and vote in the next congressional election, no member of Congress will be safe.

And that would be a great development.

Charles M. Madigan is presidential writer in residence and head of journalism at Roosevelt University.