Term limits remove accountability by vote. If you have term limits, you have no incentive to listen to voters. Party machines would actually increase, not decrease in power. When in office, it increases incentive to take special interest money to pass sh1tty bills, etc to secure financial security at the end of terms. Also decreases quality of politician as it is dead-end street. Punishes states with great representatives and diminishes their rights fro the sake of cleaning up states that have bad representatives.

Spirit of 1776 on October 4, 2008 at 4:36 PM

It’s a very good point you raise & I honestly never thought about it that way. So now then what do we do when the ignorant populace keeps voting in these monsters?
I don’t have a clue either, other than better education in school in Govt. class.
That is truly what we need. Kids need to be able to think critically. That means they need good parents, as well as teachers.
Gonna need a social revolution for that change.

For much of his career, McCain has been a media darling. He could count on the press to carry his water as long as he was a “maverick” Republican, driving more conservative members of his party crazy. But as he surely knows by now, when it comes to Barack Obama and the press, all bets are off. In covering Obama, the press has adopted a “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy designed to boost the least-vetted, least-known candidate ever to seek the presidency. It isn’t by accident that the media has denied all less-than-glowing stories about Obama the kind of consistent, sustained coverage that allows them to penetrate public consciousness.

If McCain is going to have a chance at winning, he must make sure that the public becomes thoroughly acquainted with the real Barack Obama – the most radical presidential nominee ever. And because the press evidently intends to abdicate its responsibility to acquaint voters with the less-popular parts of Obama’s record, he’ll have to rely on paid advertising to do it.

For starters, McCain should consider running a series of “Did You Know” ads about Barack Obama. He should ask voters, “Did you know that:

Read the whole thing:

http://townhall.com/columnists/CarolPlattLiebau/2008/10/06/do_you_know_the_real_barack_obama

Fine. And I expect you to hit the Annenberg Challenge very hard. But I also want to hear the following phrases: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Barney Frank. And I want the people to know that mortgage companies were extorted……

Term limits remove accountability by vote. If you have term limits, you have no incentive to listen to voters. Party machines would actually increase, not decrease in power. When in office, it increases incentive to take special interest money to pass sh1tty bills, etc to secure financial security at the end of terms. Also decreases quality of politician as it is dead-end street. Punishes states with great representatives and diminishes their rights fro the sake of cleaning up states that have bad representatives.

Spirit of 1776 on October 4, 2008 at 4:36 PM

Sorry. Not buying what you’re selling. Party machines are already so locked in (Dems and Repubs) it’s pathetic. Political office is not a place for lifetime employment nor is it a place to go to earn a pension — all of which needs to be ended. And why not some curbs on “lobbying” while were are it? Free Speech, my a$$!

“Voter Accountability” is doing NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NADA for folks who are still in elected office like Robert Byrd (55 years), John Dingell (52 years), Daniel Inouye (49 years), Ted Kennedy (45 years), John Conyers (43 years), Ted Stevens (39 years), David Obey (39 years), Charlie Rangel (37 years), and on and on and on…

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Congressmen_by_longevity_of_service

It’s ridiculous in the extreme to think that voter accountability works. If term limits are good enough for the executive branch, then term limits are good enough for the legislative. It’s time for Congress to take its long overdue medicine…

The thing I’m concerned about- and noone talks about is … What can McC and Palin do with a Democrat/far left congress and very few Republicans with any balls? Nothing will be done or can be “reformed” if Congress does not change. Palin can name names all she wants but with the MSM on the lib side-noone will listen-except us. Congress has to change- and it looks like Frankenstein is up by 9 in MN- God help us all.

kareyk on October 4, 2008 at 4:04 PM

McCain could issue executive orders that W was too stupid to issue. For example, declaring all items passed as earmarks as items to NOT be spent, due to lack of proper budgetary authorization.

Then there are ineffective programs that McCain (or Palin) could cut the budget on, to force congress to support the ineffective programs. Adding administrative requirements and approvals, transferring personnel to more useful programs, etc.

Also, an Attorney General with cajones could investigate voter fraud, criminal activities by congressional staff, and ACORN.

Tommygun on October 4, 2008 at 8:04 PM

The problem I have with you people is the way you dismiss the issues and demand unquestioning support. I get the “unity” thing but to a man/woman/whatever you attack my character in your defense.

I’m about to leave the Navy after 23 years of active service. To have idiots here question my loyalty to the US because I am not a McCain clone is offensive. Terrye is a complete nutjob who should be sent to the loony bin.

highhopes on October 5, 2008 at 12:46 AM

You are creating a false choice. It’s not a matter of “unquestioning support” or being a “McCain clone” versus holding your own positions. That goes to agreement with all his policies. It’s a matter the approach you take in addressing them. The “support” being sought is political far more than ideological. No two people agree on everything, but they still sometimes must work together against a common foe.

In World War I, a moviemaker was jailed for making a movie about the Revolutionary War. Why? Because of fear it might arouse anti-British feelings. “But, but, we have differences with the Brits on that! He should express them!” some might say. But the problem was, we were allied with the UK then despite our differences, and it was feared the movie might undermine that alliance against a common foe. No one said the moviemaker couldn’t hold his differences with the British on the matter, but in that situation, expressing them posed, in some people’s minds, enough of a danger that it should be restrained.

If your commanding officer orders a bad maneuver, do you criticize him in front of the entire crew? No. You support the decision and try to make it work. In private, you might express your reservations to him/her, but in the end you fall in line for the Cause.

What’s being talked about here is FAR LESS than that! All that’s being asked is to not undermine the alliance or the war effort. There are people whose votes we need who latch onto anything critical about a candidate and get turned against them by it. Say what you will about some of those people (I can hear it now, “But they are idiots”), nonetheless the REALITY OF THE SITUATION is that we need their votes. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but it IS that way.

Years ago, I saw a video by Gabrielle Reilly (yes, the bikini model) criticizing the “anti-war” movement. She used the analogy of your friend getting into a bar fight. When that happens, you don’t jump up on the pool table and say how bad your friend is. The implication was, you stand with your friend (and then later, after the threat is eliminated, and maybe in private, you tell him he was an idiot or something).

I said above you were creating a false choice. One can hold critical views of McCain, but at the same time be reserved or careful in what one says about those views in order to defeat the far greater threat. Those two things–holding views, but not expressing them in such a manner–are not contradictory. It’s a matter of self-restraint, not capitulation.

However, there is something in this election that indeed IS a true (forced) choice: It’s either McCain or Hussein. That’s it. One or the other. You can’t have both (barring some really freaky Electoral College thing) and you can’t have someone else.
You said something about your character being attacked. If by that you mean my references to people not showing self-restraint and seeking personal gratification, then yes, perhaps I am guilty as charged. Too often, the objection raised to what I suggest here boils down to “But I have the right to say this! And I want to say this!” To be blunt, that sounds very immature. Sometimes we have to NOT do what we want to do, even if we have the right.

I believe it was John Adams who talked about the Constitution being for a religious people, and being “wholly unsuited” for any other. The ultimate point of that, beyond “religion”, is that a free people–that is, a people with political freedom–will nonetheless need something to restrain them. That is, a SELF-RESTRAINT. Without it, that political freedom we all cherish will ultimately lead only to our demise, and the loss of that freedom. A person may have the right to say something, but have a higher principle or duty which tells them to not say it.

For me, loyalty to America “as it has been” (i.e., traditionally, before Hussein takes the White House) is that restraint. To use “freedom of speech” in order to tear down–not just criticize a policy–the country seems morally contradictory to me. If they want to leave, that’s fine. But while here, there is a higher principle that requires a certain restraint. They may not have to be all RA-RA for it, but at least don’t undermine it. And in this election, given the true choice we face, in my view that means being a little more careful in our criticism of McCain.

The alternate is far, far worse.

FiveWays on October 4, 2008 at 11:16 PM

I never said it did.

You are correct and I apologies for inferring you did. While scanning through the comments there were a lot of “it’s all the dem’s fault”, and I wasn’t checking who the authors were.

I said it gave McCain an opening, because the article does cite Democrat involvement too.

I have seen a lot of articles blaming both Republican and Democrat politicians. I haven’t been keeping score but I’ll concede to HA commenter’s it’s more D’s then R’s, for now. If McCain adopts your strategy it might open a whole new can of worms. That could be his reason for holding back on making the issue. And at the debate, the point was hammered home that McCain’s record shows he is against regulation and for deregulation of existing ones. He didn’t challenge that. In our “sound bite” culture I think that is going to trump, “more D’s are complicit in the economic mess then R’s“, in the Presidential race. Your tactic could work well in House and Senate race’s.

Paulson is a Chicago Democrat who attended Harvard

From Wiki on Paulson>

“Paulson was Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at The Pentagon from 1970 to 1972. He then worked for the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon, serving as assistant to John Ehrlichman from 1972 to 1973. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974”

He is a Laissez-Faire Capitalist which is far from Democrat party ideas.

“There is increasing evidence that Paulson was influential with two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmen, William H. Donaldson and Christopher Cox, in receiving restraint in the Commission’s exercise of oversight requirements.
In 2004, at the request of the major Wall Street investment houses, including Goldman Sachs, then headed by Paulson, the Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure. The complaint that was put forth by the investment banks was of increasingly onerous regulatory requirements — in this case, not U.S. regulator oversight, but European Union regulation of the foreign operations of US investment groups. In the immediate lead-up to the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign firms’ reserve holdings if the SEC agreed to do so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, however, put the parent holding company of each of the big American brokerages beyond SEC oversight. In order for the agreement to go ahead, the investment banks lobbied for a decision that would allow “voluntary” inspection of their parent and subsidiary holdings by the SEC.
During this repeal of the net capital rule, SEC Chairman Donaldson agreed to the establishment of a risk management office that would monitor signs of future problems. This office was eventually dismantled by Chairman Cox, after discussions with Paulson. According to the New York Times, “While other financial regulatory agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, the [new] Treasury secretary, that proposed to reduce their stature — and that of the S.E.C. — Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to three former Democratic and Republican commission chairmen to complain that the blueprint would neuter the agency.”

See what Bush, (and the tax payers), got for playing bi-partisan with a Dem Laissez-Faire Capitalist who as CEO of Goldman Sachs is part of the “old boys network”.

Tommygun on October 4, 2008 at 8:04 PM

The problem I have with you people is the way you dismiss the issues and demand unquestioning support. I get the “unity” thing but to a man/woman/whatever you attack my character in your defense.

I’m about to leave the Navy after 23 years of active service. To have idiots here question my loyalty to the US because I am not a McCain clone is offensive. Terrye is a complete nutjob who should be sent to the loony bin.

Over this 5 year period, the two of them spent $156 million, at the end of which, the University of Illinois at Chicago reported the Annenberg Challenge project had made no discernible difference to the school system

Q.# 1 – Where did the $156 million go????
A. The vast majority went for salaries/expenses of the “Community Activist” groups which were given “grant monies” by the Annenberg Challenge Project.

Q. #2 – Since this is the only real ‘executive experience’ Obama has had in his entire life, (after all managing a $156 million budget is pretty significant) why hasn’t his Chairmanship of the Annenberg Challenge appeared on his resume thus far??

alwyr on October 4, 2008 at 11:14 PM

Ditto. I’ve said this elsewhere too. Voters can get their mind around that kind of waste and incompetence. My recollection is that it was a $100M grant.

I like your number better, and mine is from a recollection of an article I read a week or so ago–yeah, I know, nice memory.

The link to the NYT article does not support the claim, “It’s all the dem’s fault.”

Chimpy on October 4, 2008 at 10:55 PM

I never said it did. I said it gave McCain an opening, because the article does cite Democrat involvment too.

This is the NYT’s after all.

Oh, and Paulson is a Chicago Democrat who attended Harvard just like Obama. See what Bush got for playing bi-partisan with a Dem?

Over this 5 year period, the two of them spent $156 million, at the end of which, the University of Illinois at Chicago reported the Annenberg Challenge project had made no discernible difference to the school system

Q.# 1 – Where did the $156 million go????
A. The vast majority went for salaries/expenses of the “Community Activist” groups which were given “grant monies” by the Annenberg Challenge Project.

Q. #2 – Since this is the only real ‘executive experience’ Obama has had in his entire life, (after all managing a $156 million budget is pretty significant) why hasn’t his Chairmanship of the Annenberg Challenge appeared on his resume thus far??

The link to the NYT article does not support the claim, “It’s all the dem’s fault.”

From your link>

“But by the time Mr. Mudd became Fannie’s chief executive in 2004, his company was under siege. Competitors were snatching lucrative parts of its business. Congress was demanding that Mr. Mudd help steer more loans to low-income borrowers. Lenders were threatening to sell directly to Wall Street unless Fannie bought a bigger chunk of their riskiest loans….. Between 2001 and 2004, the overall subprime mortgage market — loans to the riskiest borrowers — grew from $160 billion to $540 billion”

2001 to 2004: Republican President and the republicans controlled both houses. And this is worth repeating. “Lenders were threatening to sell directly to Wall Street unless Fannie bought a bigger chunk of their riskiest loans.”

“when Fannie Mae’s new chief executive, under pressure from Wall Street firms, Congress and company shareholders, took additional risks that pushed his company, and, in turn, a large part of the nation’s financial health, to the brink.
“Fannie had a longstanding and lucrative relationship with Countrywide, which sold more loans to Fannie than anyone else.
But at that meeting, Countrywide threatened to upend their partnership unless Fannie started buying Countrywide’s riskier loans.”

Blackmail!

“Investors were also pressuring Mr. Mudd/fannie to take greater risks.
On one occasion, a hedge fund manager telephoned a senior Fannie executive to complain that the company was not taking enough gambles in chasing profits.
“Are you stupid or blind?” the investor roared, according to someone who heard the call, but requested anonymity. “Your job is to make me money!””

“Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. grew concerned about Fannie’s and Freddie’s stability. He sent a deputy, Robert K. Steel, a former colleague from his time at Goldman Sachs, to speak with Mr. Mudd and his counterpart at Freddie.
Mr. Steel’s orders, according to several people, were to get commitments from the companies to raise more money as a cushion against all the new loans. But when he met with the firms, Mr. Steel made few demands and seemed unfamiliar with Fannie’s and Freddie’s operations, according to someone who attended the discussions.
Rather than getting firm commitments, Mr. Steel struck handshake deals without deadlines.”

Who appointed Paulson?

““There were other options on the table short of a takeover,” Mr. Mudd/fannie said. But as long as Treasury refused to disclose its goals, it was impossible for the company to act, according to people close to Fannie.”

“Mr. Paulson ended Fannie and Freddie’s independence, with up to $200 billion in taxpayer money to replenish the companies’ coffers.
The move failed to stanch a spreading panic in the financial world. In fact, some analysts say, the takeover accelerated the hysteria by signaling that no company, no matter how large, was strong enough to withstand the losses stemming from troubled loans.
Within weeks, Lehman Brothers was forced to declare bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was pushed into the arms of Bank of America, and the government stepped in to bail out the insurance giant the American International Group.”

How the financial markets fell for a 400-year-old sucker bet.

Yes. My ideology requires me to be loyal to America (at least, America as it has been). Tommygun on October 4, 2008 at 3:28 PM

When was that. Before civil rights? Before woman had the right to vote? When slavery was OK? Could you be more specific?

I understand the “principle” some have, that they feel like they are surrendering some part of themselves to hold the tongue, as it were. Maybe they are. But if indeed they are, it’s not surrendering to McCain, it’s surrendering to the welfare of the country.

Tommygun on October 4, 2008 at 8:04 PM

Thanks for that TG.

“It’s about the Cause…”

Since this is a campaign, timing matters. So it is a matter of good taste and etiquette during this final month to realize that to date, we have ALL had our say and plenty of it. So during this final lap to the finish line, either HELP conservatism win votes or hinder our efforts to defeat Obama the Marxist and enable the Democrats to maintain their majority rather than slim down their pickings.

McCain’s ticket will provide America the better leadership in three hugely important areas:
1. Nominate conservative readers of the Constitution to the SCOTUS.
2. Defend America from terrorism as an outstanding Commander in Chief.
3. Palin VP will provide McCain’s presidency truly effective communication. She and the people connect; there’s a mutual attraction, and she projects optimism alongside the importance of everyone taking on their own personal responsibilities, and realistic energy independence benefiting daily comforts and national security.

Tommygun on October 4, 2008 at 8:04 PM

Well said, sir. Very well said.

It’s not about McCain or anybody “deserving” support. It’s about supporting the country as we know it and opposing Obama bin Biden. The problem with your approach is that it sets up a moral/political equivalency between them. While both may be too far Left for my preference (personally, Ann Coulter is too far Left on a few things for me!!),

People, please think of it as, if nothing else, something along the lines of our alliance with the USSR to defeat Nazi Germany. Remember Churchill’s famous quote: ““If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

And in that vein, even Ann Coulter has made some limited peace with McCain in order to defeat Obama bin Biden and elect Palin. Not complete peace, but arguably more so than found with AP, MM, and many people on here.

No one is saying to not maintain a critical eye or, once the election is over, to not stand for your positions. The point is to evaluate timing and targeting. Obama bin Biden are more dangerous. So holding fire on McCain until after this more dangerous enemy is stopped makes sense. Then, you can open up on President McCain all you want in that context.

I understand the “principle” some have, that they feel like they are surrendering some part of themselves to hold the tongue, as it were. Maybe they are. But if indeed they are, it’s not surrendering to McCain, it’s surrendering to the welfare of the country.

Which is worse: Letting McCain be McCain, and holding your fire for a bit in order to defeat the far worse enemy; or indulging in McCain bashing, and thus enabling that far worse enemy to win. Personally, that latter one sounds a lot worse. With the first one, you can preserve your principles (no one is saying to go RA-RA on McCain’s whole platform) and have (if successful) a stronger position from which to work to implement your policies. With the last one, you get your immediate indulgence, but pay the cost in the form of an administration which will be, to say the least, FAR more hostile to the policies you support.

It’s not about the people involved–not you, not me, not McCain, and in a certain sense, not even about the other ticket. It’s about the Cause we in general share, and doing what will best promote and protect it.

“If Hell itself endorsed McCain, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil on Hotair.com.”