I know how I'm voting this year..

This declaration does not imply I’ve made up my mind specifically as to “who” I’m voting for, but I have decided on a voting strategy.  The method of selecting who to vote for will be based on a simple position that I will not vote for an incumbent in the upcoming elections both primary and general.  

One of the hot topics, among many, in the circles of political discussions is about congressional term limits. There are a number of movements with websites to boot that are pushing for amending the constitution, not that either party follows it to the letter anyhow, to limit the number of terms our congressional representatives can server.  However, fortunately we don’t need to amend the constitution to enforce term limits we the electorate can just vote long term career politicians out of office.   The reasons this does not happen, or why we have people serving 30 to 40 years in elected office are the following.

1.       Congressional districts have been gerrymandered to death to the point where they do not represent any type of homogenous cross section of society, but are highly segregated politically and demographically.

2.       Everyone believes their representative or senator is not the problem and that once in office for a length of time and obtain power in congress they can sway things in their favor. 

3.       A majority of the voting populace is entrenched on one side of the political spectrum and will not budge in voting for anyone from the other party.  I’ve read that the actual swing vote is about 10-15% of the vote.

4.       The internal party politics favor incumbents for preference and fund raising.

One way to invoke term limits is to simply vote them out of office. Could you image what the attitude would be in Washington if on the morning of November 7^th, 2012 the entire house and half the seats in the senate realized they had been voted out office and they thought there was a real earthquake in Washington earlier in the year.  I can assure you that if this happened shock waves would ripple all through halls of congress as a power shift of immeasurable magnitude would have taken place and for once “We The People” would have spoken in an way that would alter politics and the governance of our nation in a significant way.   

I find it highly ironic that we have term limits for one branch of the federal government, but not the other two and were suppose to have a balance of power in our government. 

It does not matter  the political view of those elected, at least not to me, the important thing is sending a message that failure of government to govern and career congressional representation is not acceptable any longer. This would in essence be “firing” congress and they need to be fired. A vast majority of Americans agree on this point, however as I know come election day the vast majority will go and pull the leaver or check the box base on how they have been programmed or conditioned to vote, sending the same people back in office but expecting different results….. hmmm they call this insanity.  So, I for one vow that I'll not vote for an incumbent in the coming elections, If you really want a better government you’ll do the same.