Keller @ Large: Calling Off Election Not Way To Go
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:
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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.
