The political experts have been saying for quite some time that there is an anti-incumbent spirit roiling across the fruited plains. And this reality has been borne out in the primaries so far, just ask the defeated Democrat, I mean Republican, I mean Democrat Arlen Specter, the party-switching Senator from Pennsylvania.
Is the country poorer for making a knee-jerk reaction that will end in a Congress with less-experienced members? No, and here’s why. I’m not going to make the obvious arguments, like there will still be plenty of people left there with experience even with a few political veterans thrown overboard, or it’s the professional staffers who tell their bosses how to vote half the time anyway.
Here’s my argument: long-standing members of Congress have grown out of touch with the rest of America because they have inoculated themselves from the issues we face. On health care, social security, and a host of other issues, Congress has one standard for us and a different standard for themselves (guess which one is better). Thus, they don’t, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, feel our pain. Throwing some rookies into the mix will result in some rookie mistakes, but it also increases the possibility that some of our elected officials might actually see things from our point of view. I think that would be nice.