Of the seven S.C. seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, six are held by Republicans and one by a Democrat. The state of Texas has 37 seats; all but 11 are Republican. These results are from the 2012 election. What I find so interesting is not how many are held by Republicans or Democrats. What seems to be a miserable fact is that in our state 100 percent of the incumbent Representatives and 98 percent in Texas were re-elected, not rejected!
A president re-elected to his second term is seen as being a lame duck from early in the second term because the presidents are barred from contesting a term four years later. He is thus free to take politically unpopular actions. Nonetheless, as the de facto leader of his political party, the president’s actions affect how the party performs in the midterm elections two years into the second term. And to some extent, the success of that party’s nominee in the next presidential election four years in the future.
We Americans have done it again. We have re-elected approximately 95 percent of the incumbents who were running for re-election to an institution that has an approval rate of about 9 percent.
This indicates to me that, as an electorate, we are a nation of idiots!
We’re now stuck with this useless, dysfunctional, bureaucratic bunch of little boys and girls that we obviously wanted and deserve!
I hope we learn something from all this for the next election.
Jeff Schaffer
Lake Monticello