A friend of mine recently announced his candidacy for the US Congress, which piqued my interest because I would never have suspected that he had more than a passing interest in politics, much less in being directly involved in the dog fight itself. As I thought about this more I decided to send him a letter congratulating him and expressing some of my thoughts and concerns. Now with the campaign season in full swing for the 2010 elections, and the rhetoric and posturing in full development phase, I thought that I would rewrite my original letter and publish those thoughts and hopes for the benefit (or detriment) of all of the new and established candidates and their incumbent opponents.

Dear Candidate……. Congratulations (I think?) on your decision to enter the political fray via the US Congress, a big step, but one I am sure you will take with the best of intention and ethical design.

As you know I left the country more than six months ago, unlucky to have lost my house and job and most of my savings in the current economic debacle, with no hope of gaining meaningful employment here, but lucky enough to have saved my sailboat and enough money to hopefully ride out the malaise of this recession on the Sea of Cortez, and able to live much more frugally in Mexico. It’s interesting that so many Americans are leaving the US and living in foreign countries and taking all their money there, and so many foreigners are coming here to work and sending their earnings back abroad as well… no wonder our economy is failing. I feel somewhat like a rat abandoning a sinking ship, but the ship is sinking.

It’s also interesting, after sailing around the fringe of civilization for six months, and when I come back into a port and make contact with the world and read my email and catch up on the news (seen clearly from afar I think), that nothing has changed in that time. Six months is admittedly not a long period of time, but still you would expect at least some small progress or change to occur. I voted for Mr. Obama based on his promise, I thought, for change, and it seemed that change was the only sane course of action since the status quo and the promises of the other candidates past and present all seemed to only reinforce Einstein’s definition of insanity, ergo “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, but the news and our government and our world is the same; the media just reports the same old stories edited with new names, dates and addresses it seems, to create the ten second film clips of manufactured reality that we all live on, designed to divert us from the broken status quo.

The politicians are still claiming that they know how to fix things (see “Einstein” again), whether they are broken or not; the Democrats touting change, the Republicans also claiming they have the solutions for change, but don’t want to tell us what for some reason; the Democrats blaming the Republicans for nothing getting done, just as the Republicans blamed the Democrats last year; all of them apparently working hard to prolong the process, and thus their tenure and their pay checks. They study the issues more, framing the questions again, but differently; form a commission to investigate the other side and define the blame, and then create a problem with a difficult, costly solution; more jawboning for TV time and campaign dollars, another opportunity to look busy and convince us that the job is impossibly complex, beyond our understanding, but not theirs, so "trust me", with a confident smile.

We have a political system that is supposed to encourage diversity, fairness, and representation of the majority. Unfortunately only two political parties have the organization and power to get a person elected to public office, and the  “American People”, who I think given a choice would vote for “none of the above” 85% of the time, are left holding the proverbial bag while the oligarchy rules and prospers. The parties have few if any real differences in their true political agendas, and we are left wondering, when we’re given a chance to think, once the fog and distractions of the media diatribe has cleared, why none of the promises we voted for and the problems we voted against have been attended to, much less resolved.

The majority appears to have lost its appeal, and the issues and needs of the American People are being buried by the distraction of pointless partisanship from our politicians - and gridlock is their goal! Under the guise of "politics" it strengthens their grip on power and rewards their avarice. The only thing that trumps this empty partisanship is the self-centered greed fed by the blatant special interests and their lobbyists to our so-called representatives.

I am not really as cynical as I may appear to be, but one cannot help but feel frustrated with our government that was once designed and intended to be “of the people, by the people and for the people”, but has since become its own master and monster. Our current politicians appear to be incapable of doing the people’s business and yet they have no problem readily approving a separate health care plan for themselves, an annual pay raise for themselves, a new fleet of jets and cars to ferry themselves about, a lifetime pension for themselves and their spouses, and any other number of perks and benefits that inevitably fatten their bank accounts and retirement plans and diminish ours. What other job so blatantly rewards ineptitude? They do not even participate or depend on Social Security or Medicare, which they have stuck us with, and swear they will maintain, but have refused to fix; and we for some reason accept that - thank you again Mr. Einstein.

“Didn’t our guy win?” we ask, forgetting as the system is designed to encourage, that the guy we voted for was in fact a “politician”, not concerned with the issues of the American People, as they solidly swore to be, and convinced us that they were to get our vote, but with the issues of their political agenda. Their hypocrisy gives them away if we pay attention; it used to be that if you spoke ill of the Party then you had no chance of being elected. Now the trick is to convince the people that you’re not really a “Party” guy or girl, even though you are, because you have to be to get elected; both parties and even " we people" in the middle, seem to understand and condone this; we complain about all those other politicians, as they complain about each other, and then blithely re-elect “ours”, and once again I refer to Mr. Einstein.

Politics is an ugly game that can only be played by achieving one ultimate objective; getting elected. That is how they play and how they win, and unfortunately how we lose; the winners get to keep the job and all the perks and all the benefits, and the losers, the American People, get to pay for it, in more ways than one. It has been this way since the Magna Carte, when politicians were created to calm the masses threatening to overthrow a wicked despot who recognized that his survival depended on the need for the people’s representation (or seeming so at least). It will certainly not change in the near future, for the system has a life of its own and both the Democrats and the Republicans, and the people unwittingly as well, are its caretakers with the same ultimate objectives - calm the masses and maintain the status quo; change is uncomfortable.

Dear Candidate, you have chosen your “Party”, and I understand that you believe that you need that party organization behind you to be elected, but I hope that you will recognize that "Party Politics" is not what we need. The American People are starting to see through this and more are registering as Independents, and that is what we need - Independence. I will give a new candidate the benefit of the doubt for now, and expect that you go into this with the best of intention and objectives. We need leaders with ethics and empathy and the ability to transform our government. I wish you nothing but the best, and I hope that you can maintain those principles that you seem to have now throughout your tenure once elected, and perhaps nurture some sanity from the rest of us in the process.

One last thought, please, don’t spend money we don’t have - this government mortgage on our future may very well be the next big “bubble” to burst, and I for one have no more money left to bail out the government, and the Chinese may not be willing in the future.