Only two good things came from that experience. First, I paid for my tuition. Second, I learned that most people aren't logical; they are misinformed, uninformed, disengaged or just plain emotional. It didn't matter what state I surveyed, almost everyone I talked to thought the country was, "headed in the wrong direction," and, "disapproved of," or, "strongly disapproved of," the job Congress currently did. The odd thing was most of them thought their incumbent Representative or Senator did an outstanding job! That makes no sense at all and I doubt that outcome has changed one bit in 2008. The only way I can explain it is by choosing one of the non-logical descriptions I mentioned earlier.
In my opinion, what happens is Congress pleases most of their local constituents so they can get reelected and completely misses the bigger national picture. For example, a simple emergency measure becomes a 500 page behemoth full of earmarks. Congressman A tells Congresswoman B that the only way he'll vote for a bill to help people in her state X who are suffering from natural disaster Y is if he can get some money to build a bridge with his name on it back in his state Z. The obvious solution, of course, is term limits. However, that poses a problem.
During the 1990s, 23 states put measures on their ballots to limit terms in Congress. They all overwhelmingly passed. Unfortunately, in 1995 the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, ruled that states could not impose term limits on their Representatives or Senators. The only way term limits will ever become a reality, is if Congress passes legislation to limit their own terms. While Congress readily legislates themselves raises, I'm pretty certain they aren't going to limit the length of their own careers. Regardless, they still have to get reelected every two to six years and that's where the Tea Party comes in. If we remove incumbents, we limit terms. There is nothing Congress or the Supreme Court can do to stop that. This has to be a populist, grassroots initiative and that requires everyone to tell everyone else about the Tea Party. We may be too late for the 2008 election, but there WILL be another election in 2010.
