Politics and millionaires

I usually do not write a direct political blog. There have been times that I have addressed the Conservative and Liberal dialogue going on in the public arena, but out-and-out politics I have left up to others. But, over the last several months there has been something just gnawing at my spirit and so I’ve decided I might as well get it off my chest and be done with it. I apology to my many faith readers, who usually check out my daily blog, with the hopes of discovering a spiritual insight or a biblical understanding – this is a departure from my “normal” muses. I will return to that tomorrow … or at least I hope I do since I never know what might touch my spirit.

We are entering a rather interesting and somewhat disturbing, at least from my perspective, time in American politics. Here in Florida we have two races, one for Governor and one for the Senate – with candidates from both parties fitting the bill – where it is the wealthy trying to buy the election through multi-millions of their own money being thrown into the mix.

Oh, we’ve been here before. Remember Ross Perot’s attempt to win the presidency by spending his own money. It didn’t work then and I pray that it won’t work now. After last weeks primaries in a few states I’m not really confident about the outcome. Here in Florida, based on name recognition only, the millionaires surged in the polls, but now that people are actually listening to what they are saying (or not saying) and just how they got their money – by frauding Medicare and betting against the sub-prime housing market – the poll numbers are starting to even out. Only time will tell.

What bothers me is that I think that our founding fathers wanted to move away from a House of Lords when they created the Senate and the House of Representatives – even though it actually did reflected wealth on the one hand and the common people on the other. We run the risk, because of our freedoms, of slipping ever so slowly back into that Catch 22 situation. Nothing, in our laws, prevents the wealthy from “buying” a seat in either house simply by throwing millions of the their own money into the advertising … nothing except the wisdom of those who step into the voting booth and mark their ballot.

It really behooves us to learn all that we can about each of the candidates and share our conclusions with others. The outcome is really up to us … we have no one to blame than ourselves if some lying son-of-a-gun gets elected and does to our state what he did to his company. From my perspective it is all about integrity – once you loose your integrity what do you have left? I cannot speak about any of the other multimillionaires running for political offices from Maine to California, but what I have read and heard of the two running here in Florida they lost their integrity long time ago and as of yet, haven’t regained any of it back.

Lord, help us if either of them get elected!

Quote for today: The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. Plato