Keller @ Large: Calling Off Election Not Way To Go

September 28, 2011 8:32 AM

(Photo by Frank Polich/Getty Images)

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BOSTON (CBS) – There’s a reason why there’s more public confidence in the Red Sox bullpen right now than there is in Congress — the Sox relievers still occasionally get the job done.

So when someone suggests a radical idea to shake up Washington and break the absurd partisanship that has made the place an unfunny laughingstock, people listen.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Unfortunately, perhaps, for Democratic North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, who found herself the lead story on the Drudge Report for suggesting — apparently, with a straight face – that the next Congressional election be suspended for two years and we should “just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

The governor’s spokesman later tried to clarify, claiming she was “obviously using hyperbole to highlight what we can all agree is a serious problem: Washington politicians who focus on their own election instead of what’s best for the people they serve.”

Let’s hope so.

Whatever problems we have in our political system don’t seem likely to be solved by restricting input from the voters.

But as if to justify the governor’s trip down hyperbole lane, North Carolina Republicans went ballistic, and the right now has another delicious tidbit to fuel their appetite for evidence of a Democratic plot to subvert democracy, just as the Democrats have been dining out to excess on the sound of a few nitwits at a GOP debate booing a gay soldier.

It all suggests that deep within the foolishness of Gov. Perdue’s idea is a kernel of truth — our politics have become ridiculously polarized and paranoid.

But calling off the election isn’t the way to go.

Instead, let’s see if we all can’t try to be grownups instead of bratty little children.

Let’s see the politicians and the voters rise to the occasion, demanding straight talk and problem-solving and shunning finger-pointing and cheap partisanship.

Can that happen?

The Red Sox pulled it out last night.

If that can happen, anything can.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Keller @ Large: Calling Off Election Not Way To Go

tsal

Our politics have become “ridiculously paranoid and polarized.” I completely understand why the suggestion was made. The focus is on the elections and pandering in order to be elected and not on the problems we face. We can’t wait until 2012 to do anything.
However, I can’t begin to compare it to the focus on the booing of the gay solder by a few or a few in the audience at the prior debate suggesting they let a person die. Although those few are revolting, what is more disturbing that in neither case did anyone on the panel have a word to say. I would be equally upset if it happened at a democratic debate or for that matter if a member of my family didn’t speak up when something like that occurred.
http://www.libertarian-blog.com/2011/09/economic-solution-suspend-elections.html The Libertarian: The economic solution – suspend the elections

[...] Elections | Crystal Coast Tea P.. North Carolina Governor Perdue Says Elections Should be Suspended Keller @ Large: Calling Off Election Not Way To Go « CBS Boston Governor Perdue: Suspend Congressional Elections To Fix The Economy | Conse.. NC Governor [...]
joe

I am sick of hearing that everything would be OK if the politicians in Washington would just get along and play nice. Jon, did it ever ocur to you that one of the sides could be right and the other one wrong? Are you suggesting that the country would be better off if our leaders decided agreeably to make matters worse?

Tsal

Joe. I don’t believe one person and one view can ever be all right. It takes compromise. It always has and always will. It’s the foundation of our country

mikey

It’s a sad state of affairs when apathetic voters seem to be more interested in the two-faced cat story reported yesterday than national politics.

I’m a big fan of most things unique but draw the line at a having a ghoulish feline running around the house – no thanks.
The Owl

As one listens to the tape of the Governor’s remarks, one help but think her comments were serious.

I continually am baffled by the lack of understanding displayed by today’s left of the fundamentals of our representative form of democracy and their lack of tolerance for debate.

It seems hypocritical to decry hostage taking as political tactic and then engage in the practice.
Ajay

I can understand the governor’s desire to suspend the 2012 elections for a couple of years. I think that the democrats would much rather have the gridlock and the GOP in the house than to get clobbered in the elections. Now I know that the democrats here will rush forward and say that they don’t expect defeat in th 2012 elections. But they have beed destroyed in the special elections so far and only the extreme left democrats want Obama ‘helping’ them with their campaigns.

The demand for comprimise has only surfaced since the 2010 defeats. Prior to that, compromise was somehting only mentioned for the press.

So I can understand her desire to suspend the elections. The democrats are on the verge of becoming a third place party; after the GOP and the Tea Party.