2010-06-02
Number of People Running For Congress: 2,300
... number of seats available? 471 House and Senate seats.
That's an awfully large amount of people running, and in the fury of people scrambling for these seats, one has to wonder: will the best man win? Many of these people have been kick started into running because of local TEA Party sentiments, and many are running as Republicans, both against D's and R's alike.
The concern, of course, is that with all of the people wanting to get involved in politics, the best person for the job won't be the one that wins. If there are 10 R's on one ballot, and the person that wins the primary only wins with 20% of the votes (not impossible), is that person going to be the best one for the job? Maybe. Maybe not. There are a lot of political new comers, and in some cases I've nodded my head and was excited about the aspect of new blood, in other cases I see the new comers taking out good people simply in the name of "out with the old, in with the new".
The only thing we can do, I suppose, is to wait and watch and see what happens.
Don't get me wrong here, folks, I'm not trying to rain on anybody's parade. If you want to run, you have the right to run. But, if you see a name on the ballot and it's a person that will do a damn good job, why sign on? If the person on the ballot is a person that you knew would be pretty close to how you would do things, why run and run the risk of splitting hairs and putting in a person that is ... less than desirable?
Whatever the outcomes of this primary and general election, one things for sure: there's going to be a hell of a lot of people that can say "I ran for Congress in 2010!" Perhaps we should start printing shirts... it would be awfully lucrative.
