Just my opinion - Senators and Presidents

[wakfs]

Okay, this has been bothering me for a long time so I thought I'd throw caution to the wind and risk flames to post my long-purcolating thoughts on this subject. Let me preface my comments with saying that I support Kerry 1000% and plan to vote for him and constantly talk to people about the election. I hope he wins big time as I despise Bush.

Here's the fundamental problem with Kerry running for president (and why I still think Howard Dean was the better national candidate): Americans have pretty fixed opinions on the nature and character of members of Congress, and fixed opinions on the nature and character of presidents.

Senators and congressmen/women are generally perceived as untrustworthy in that they seem not to have a fixed set of beliefs, right or wrong. This is because of the nature of Congress, which is based on the theory of compromise. Nothing usually gets done in Congress without somebody giving up something for something else. The perception, again right or wrong, is that these people don't have strong firm beliefs due to their always needing to be "in the middle" for compromise.

Presidents, on the other hand, are seen as needing to be strong leaders with a firm set of beliefs, forget about whether or not you agree with all of them.

Kerry is a classic Senator - he's spent his entire political career in a legislative body whose laws are based on compromise. He's used to not being pinned down in order to actually get stuff done. Bush is seen as a man of strong beliefs, even though those beliefs are evil and he is a worthless spoiled richboy drunk simpleton.

In my opinion, and hindsight is always 20-20, Dean would have been a stronger national candidate vis a vis the Iraq war. He would have made the Iraq debacle the number one issue. Too bad the two-party system is rife with corruption borne of corporate moneyed interests.

Comments or flames anyone?

[MsTryska]

1. Most people I talk to

have no clue who their senators and congressmen are, let alone what they actually do.

[Blue Wally]

2. Senators and congressmen have a problem

If they have served for any length of time, they have a track record of votes on amendments, compromizes, etc which can readily be taken out of context or which might be a "stepping stone" on their way to their current philosophy.