I am OK with health care reform, now how about political reform?

Our expectations for how laws are made might need to be reset.  The old adage, "you don't want to see it" doesn't really work any more in an increasing connected world.  This one was hard to avoid.

FWIW, I think the democratic strategy of mostly ignoring the republicans was the best one because the republicans are apparently only interested in derailing any outcomes while the democratically controlled congress is in power.  And this is how things are going to be as long as we agree to be elect representatives of the same two, entrenched parties.  Not a great scenario for government productivity.  No wonder there is so much cynicism surrounding politics.

In the aftermath of this, the republicans are going forward with a "vote the bums out" crusade. The democrats, on the other hand, will try to portray the republicans as log-jammers, a position that is much less appealing than the bum's rush approach. Of course, sweeping the floor of incumbents favors the republicans numerically because there are more democrats to sweep out. So what will change? The balance of power shifts, but the whining, bickering and polemics stay the same.

To me, the answer is simple, but making it happen is virtually impossible - and that is to get another national party off the ground.  There are a lot of reasons why it won't work, but I'm a bit tired of hearing why things can't be done in politics.  One of the ways to start chipping away at the two party system is to change the way primary elections work.  Here is a link to a ballot initiative that will be on this year's June 20th primary ballots in California.

Comments

[nate]

I'm not OK with health care reform, I could go on about how terrible it is just about as much as I can go on about how much I like 3PAR and your products(probably longer in fact). But I'll save you the rant(which as you can imagine I have spent many MANY months analyzing), believe me it's hard to restrain myself from blogging about it on my blog I try to keep my blog technical, it's SOO hard to hold back sometimes from railing against the government.

But if we ever meet and your interested I'd be happy to explain my position, you'll probably find it differs significantly from that of either of the major parties.

I went to a Dell Equallogic luncheon(I can't turn down steak especially if it's within walking distance of both home and work), and learned that I made the right decision by going with 3PAR..

All I want for Christmas is a grid locked congress..well after they repeal healthcare that is ! :)

[Adriaan]

You guys might be interested in how things are moving in the UK - the two main parties are so out of favour that we are possibly heading for a hung parlaiment - and the more they tell us that is a bad thing - the more people realize that if the politicians don't like it - then it must be exactly the right outcome, as it makes them more responsive to the electorate.
I have seen the decades long two party state of the USA and now you also seem to like neither - maybe we can move to modern democracy where we can actually vote for issues, not representatives as technology will provide that easily. I think it would be great to log on and vote once a month for what I want.