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Here in Canada we have our elections in about 6-8 weeks, there are no 2 year long campaigns. An MP needs about 70k to finance his or her campaign.
Part of the problem as I see it, is that candidates in America must raise truly astounding amounts of money. I understand that a Senator has to raise at least 60k a WEEK to finance their reelection campaigns. Ain't no way someone can get elected in America without a lot of money, and I don't think anyone here will disagree with me when I say that Quid pro quo is as old as man, and that once elected politicians are not just beholding, but essentially employees (or co-conspirators) of the Über rich who got them there.
Of course I am making the old "both parties are the same" argument, but I am also trying to look at the root causes of this. If it is in fact true that both parties are the same -- the fact that they both feed at the same trough may go a long way in explaining why. There are many ways to change this system, but I don't see the political will to do so.
I am not at all hopeful that Obama will change much if anything, and this Lieberman thing is good evidence of that. The thing I find most disturbing about Obama is his plan to escalate or 'surge' as they say these days, the war in the Afghan. I find this bizarre and incomprehensible. I am not even sure what the "official" rationale for this escalation is. What's the plan man? And finally, Obama has twice threatened to bomb Pakistan -- which in some ways is even more disturbing than his planned escalation in Afghanistan, a country that has never been conquered. Pakistan is very fragile right now, and if they tip over to the Islamists and fundies, we will have a nuclear armed nation completely in the thrall of A.Q. Khan and his ilk. And that's not change that we can believe in.
