Term limits have lately become a popular topic of conversation. When a lot of folks start getting fed up with what’s happening in Washington, term limits are sometimes becomes strategy #1 for solving the problem. But it’s like the idea of a flat tax or domestic drilling… it sounds good as a sound bite, but what does it really end up meaning, and why do we really think it’s going to help?

Frankly, I was a big supporter of the idea some years ago (back when Neal Smith represented my US House district in Congress), but I have figured out that the reason I was such a big supporter was specifically because of Neal Smith. That is, I wanted him out of office, and term limits sounded like an easy way to accomplish it. It was a specific, tactical, selfish reason.

I certainly recognize that there are other reasons, some of which are compelling. Let’s make a list, shall we?

I don’t like the person who’s currently my (legislator, governor, etc.). From my own party, I’ve heard activists actually say “How else do we get rid of Tom Harkin (Senator from Iowa)?”. Wow, so then what happens when we get someone in office who we actually like? You can’t have it both ways… implementing term limits is not the way to move your agenda forward. Term limits will likely cause us more difficulty in moving the agenda forward. What you need is to bring candidates who can win elections.

Two terms (or one, or three, whatever the number of the month is) are enough for anyone to accomplish what they need to accomplish. If the purpose of sending someone to represent us in Washington or our state capital is to accomplish some singular thing, this might actually make sense. But the purpose of the legislatures includes doing a good deal of work that must be [...]

After two years, we finally get to pull the lever.
I do not propose to get into specifics, here about what I’m going to do. I don’t suppose I will need to.

You see, when I vote today, I’m going to remember which party made possible another vote recently, and which party decided fighting for freedom wasn’t worth it.

I strongly suggest that you should, as well.

Cross-posted from BitsBlog.

Addendum (Art): Great point, Bit. It’s also great to see American’s taking their right to vote this year as seriously as Iraqis do.

If you need them, free voter tools and endorsement information are in the center sidebar. We want to help you out today as much as possible.
The numbers are not completely up to date yet, but it looks like over 30 million Americans have voted in early balloting (up through November 3) for this election. That’s almost 25% of the total votes cast in 2004! Depending on how and when different states are counting these ballots, Tuesday and Wednesday could be an interesting time… and I doubt that exit polling will have the same level of predictability it had in years past.

Wow.

It’s awesome to see the power of the people brought to bare… the results are certainly unpredictable, but that’s part of the beauty and ultimately the intended process. Everyone has done everything they can and should to promote their parties, their candidates, their positions, and today everyone (who hasn’t already yet) gets to[...]

I’ve only provided endorsements for President and for legislative contests that affect me directly. Unfortunately, personal and work commitments have kept me from providing a broader assessment of candidates.

If you have not had adequate time yourself to interact with candidates or research them at their web sites, I can make a couple of simple suggestions:

There are a number of web sites with candidate assessments from varying perspectives, including general political principals and specific policy areas. Using various Google searches (such as “2008 Congressional candidate comparison tax“) you can[...]

Less than 72 hours remain until the polls will close across the country, and we’re already getting plenty of messages intended to demoralize McCain supporters. DON’T LISTEN TO A WORD OF IT!

The model for this was set during the primaries… a great analysis and prediction of repeat offenses are described at the HillBuzz Blog. It’s a great read if you have time, but the point of it that they will do anything to convince you to skip voting if you’re planning to vote for McCain. Three core efforts (and tell me you haven’t seen this already) are:

• Calls for McCain to just give up and quit, because the race is over
• Wild claims of Obama winning states that shock and surprise you
• Repeated insistance that blacks and young people will decide this election, and they are all going to vote in record numbers for Obama

The worst part of this is[...]

Early state-by-state voting numbers are available at this link. For Iowa, we have already had nearly 340,000 votes cast this year. In 2004, there were a total of 1,521,966 votes cast, which means we’ve already seen over 20% of the 2004 total voting in the early polls! That is awesome, and again speaks to the likelihood that the numbers will likely be even higher than 2004 when the dust settles.

Out of the early numbers, registered Democrats make up 48.9% of the votes, and registered Republicans make up 28.5 (the 22.7% are independent). That does NOT mean that Obama has 49% of the vote in the early polls!

There was TV ad put together by some Hollywood heavyweights that, regardless of the political leanings they may espouse, delivers a message we should all support: every vote counts. Don’t let yourself be[...]

The biggest fraud in this election appears to be the use of polling numbers to disorient and discourage (mostly) Republican voters.

How many times have you heard three or four different sets of polling results in for the same state in the same time period? Keep an eye on the organizations providing the information. I doubt that any partisan organization is going to avoid showing numbers favorable to their candidate, but the largely liberal media is clearly having a heyday pushing numbers that just don’t add up. Even this week here in Iowa, polling supposedly puts Obama 12 to 13 points ahead of McCain.

So why was Obama planning to come to Iowa this week? (that[...]

If my experience tonight is any indication, we are in for record participation at the polls this year.

Originally I thought to wait until Election Day, but personal matters have made it possible that I may be called out of town and miss the opportunity to vote.

Two years ago, I voted early. At that time, one would go to the library, enter a small office, fill out an absentee ballot, and you’re done. No wait, no pain.

Fast forward to today. I voted early once again. And again I went to the library. I stood in line behind about 20 people. At the front of the line was a table with two poll workers each helping two people at a time fill out the forms for their absentee ballots. You could register here, although you needed[...]

The Supreme Court today backed the petition of the Ohio Secretary of State’s position that they did not need to verify the records of about 200,000 new voters this years whose ID information did not match government records. That’s more than 25% of the new voter registrations in Ohio.

Although it’s a fairly partisan confrontation, it highlights something that is becoming more endemic across our fruited plane: in our attempts to ensure that people are able to exercise their right to vote, we are becoming more and more at risk of exposing a larger segment of ballots to fraud.

The problem extends beyond just the sublime attempts to[...]

I was subjected to scenes of Barack and Hillary playing nice with each other on stage at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire.  It was a bit over the top.
I don’t know what the real content (if any) of their speeches consisted of, and the newscasts simply showed snippets of each of them saying cute [...]