Elections Matter, Yes. Results Matter More.

I have read an increasing number of articles over the past several weeks and months as Republican pundits and columnists chastise Republican voters for their attitude in the last election. The only good thing about this is that nobody is talking about it being a Democrat victory any more (the arguments for that don’t even rank “pathetic”).

What upsets me is that these columnists are waggling their fingers at the voters. It is true that I also feel the voters have a lesson to learn, that is the old cliché (and as much as I hate them, it is true) that if you don’t vote, that’s the equivalent to voting for the strongest opposition candidate. I voted in the 2006 election. Early. However, I feel the larger lesson is being lost here.

These pundits and columnists should be addressing their admonishments to the politicians who were “voted out of office”. This would be a non-issue if the officials we elected (and I have nothing to complain about with the four national politicians who represent me) actually represented us and our values.

The reason Republicans lost in the 2006 election was because they were dumbasses. They were stupid, spineless, unresponsive dumbasses who did not represent the desires of their constituents. You know, those people who voted for them in the first place?

Yes, it is true that the best place to defeat a poor representative is in your party’s primaries, not to have them lose in the general election and therefore transfer power to the opposition party, but I have two problems with this. First, it should be obvious to even the novice political spectator that it is very difficult to defeat an incumbent (for novices, that means the person who currently holds the office in question). A primary is rarely more than a formality when your party already holds the office being voted upon. If you really need me to reason that out for you, feel free to comment and I’ll expound. Second, the largest infractions against conservative principles were committed after the primaries. Several people have said (and with this I agree) that the two largest issues on the conservative plate are the war on terror and immigration.

Border security came up not in the middle of the primaries, but after the primaries were done and the general election was being contested.

I am not going to exonerate voters who did not go to the polls to support their candidates. I still believe you should vote. I do, however, maintain that the problem started not with these voters, but with the politicians who let them down.