The Balance of Power
by Robert Russo
This week it was announced Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffered a brain hemorrhage, and underwent emergency surgery sparking the response that if he is unable to serve out his term, it will give control of the Senate back to a Republican majority. At the time of this writing it is said he is in stable condition.* At first my reaction was how can they make such a thing political? But it is political. Every agenda the Democrats have hoped to put through congress rests on the synapses of this poor man most Virginians have never heard of, his genetic condition probably more guaranteed to make the history books than any motion he will ever make as a legislator.
He doesn’t even have to be well enough to vote, he just has to be alive and conscious to remain a senator and keep the Democratic majority won by Jim Webb and others. That is the nation we live in, because all 51 democrats are expected to vote one way and all 49 republicans the other, and the governor of his state is expected to appoint a republican to replace him if asked (or sacrifice his own political career along with any senator who crosses party lines). How did it come to this?
The answer is the two-party system. Sponsorship has always helped people attain power but now the sponsors are more important than the responsibilities of the office. They can’t be bipartisan, they can’t afford to. My young friend who is ten was playing cards with me the other night, and having more pennies to start with than I he made each bet larger than I could afford to match, saying whoever can’t match a bet forfeits the hand, and soon he had all the pennies regardless of what cards were dealt. This reminds me of the political situation, the methods used to cheat are now the standard, like a workplace in which a bad employee survives by favoritism becomes a place where everyone competes for favors and no one is working.
Elections are never simple anymore, there always seems to be some circumstance that subverts the process. When one man’s health is equal to the entire electoral year in deciding a legislature, when will someone save their party a lot of time and effort and just have him hit by a car? We are fortunate to live in a prosperous country where democracy goes unchallenged by other political paradigms and foreign influence, like Ukraine where the candidates poison each other, and Yugoslavia where the losing party barricades the capital. What will these chinks in our infrastructure become if that is no longer the case? Incoming majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada visited Sen. Johnson reporting that he looked "good, fine"*, which I’m sure was a heartfelt personal call and also his responsibility, but saying a man looks good one day after brain surgery is a political put-at-easer to anyone with a New Year’s political resolution. It makes you wonder, will we become like Cuba concealing the health of Castro or Palestine lying about the health of Arafat?
The solution is a third party contender. We libertarians are still alive and kicking, even if some people forget about us from time to time, and will endure which makes us more likely to provide this initiator than anyone. It will be an uproar, the major parties breaking new ground in their personal attacks, but it will change the equation. Instead of one candidate reaching the 270 electoral votes required to win, no candidate will reach that figure and congress must decide the next president. In congress itself neither party will have a majority and getting a bill passed will depend on one’s ability to court the third party.
Sen. Johnson will have to deal with the repercussions of his illness for the rest of his life, perhaps returning to politics perhaps not, but he is alive and that is what balances the scales for the moment. Our prayers are with him this holiday season. I read updates on this issue at CNN.com.
*http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/15/johnson.ap/index.html
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