Maybe James Madison wasn't so Bright After all

I used to admire James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution." But do we really need elections every two years the way he planned?

He may have lived at the time of the original tea party but why didn't he foresee the bunch of nut jobs running around today that have taken on that mantle?

Maybe it's because I have too much free time on my hands any more but I have been subjected to way too many political ads this year. I keep telling myself that it will all be over in a week but with the advent of cable news we seem to be in an election cycle that never ends.

I wish James Madison would have had the foresight to realize that someday TV would be invented and we would be barraged not only by ads for months leading up to the election but by analysis. Holding elections every two years seems excessive to me. It just gives Wolf Blitzer an excuse to analyze trends leading up to the election.

I won't be able to breathe a sigh of relief even after next Tuesday is over because sometime in the middle of the evening, while we are waiting for votes from Anchorage to come in, they will start predicting who will be running in the Republican and Democrataic Presidential primaries in 2012. Thank goodness Glee is on on Tuesday nights. It will give me something to watch instead. And there is no way I am giving up The Good Wife even for Anderson Cooper.

I am trying not to become distraught at the idea that The Democrats will lose control over one or both houses although I really don't know why. They seem to have the habit of working against themselves even when they do get the majority. Why is it that when Republicans have a slim majority in each house they can't find one member to break ranks on partisan issues but when the Democrats are in control (and I use that term lightly) there are always a few of their members that are more concerned with self preservation than their party's agenda?



And couldn't they have found someone a little less abrasive and polarizing than Nancy Pelosi to elect Speaker of the House? Someone like Howard Stern?

 Maybe it is a rule. The Speaker of the House has to be unpopular with everyone except their peers. The Republicans gave us Newt Gingrich for heaven's sake. And now they have John Boehner waiting in the wings. Someone please lend him a sequined jacket. He already has the orange tan required to appear on Dancing With the Stars.

Pelosi and Boehner cannot possibly be that popular even among their peers. They must just be the members of Congress that have the most dirt on everyone else.

I do sometimes feel that government works best when neither party controls both Congress and the White House. That way only the important stuff, the stuff everyone can agree on gets done. Maybe we should just convene Congress during emergencies. We could save a lot of money.

The economy is in the tank but somehow millions of people had money to donate billions to run campaign ads this year. Couldn't we have used a little of that on new textbooks somewhere?

If the Democrats do lose next week it is their own fault. They have run a spineless campaign so far, letting the right wing label health care Obamacare and failing to remind voters that the stimulus kept us from a depression.

The Republicans have Fox News on their side. The Democrats are forced to rely on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to get their side of the story out. In retrospect I guess that is fair. It is hard to tell which is the bigger joke, Comedy Central or Fox News.

The Democrats always seem to be running scared even when they are in power. They need to remember a phrase that worked pretty well for them in the past; "We have nothing to fear but fear itself.".......well that and Wolf Blitzer.