re: Fellow southerners - why do we keep electing fools?

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I haven't read the entire thread. But here's my take.

In today's environment, any intelligent, sensible, decent person stays far away from elected office. Why would you drag your family and yourself through the media mud, have every thing you've ever done opened up to scrutiny and misinterpretation by the other side, and ensure your family will never have a normal life? Sensible people, the kind you'd want to actually hold office, say "thanks, but not a chance."

So, you only have the corrupt, the greedy, or the fools running - there aren't many good choices to make. Even IF, and it's a big IF, a candidate starts off with great intentions and is a good elected official, they inevitably get dragged down into the muck by having to do favors and make promises for the greater good. By the time they run for a big office, like Senator, or President, they've had to play the game too long, and they've cut so many back-room deals that they're as bad as what they set out to change.

It's a piss-poor system that doesn't attract the cream of the crop. Sadly, it's one of the best systems in the world, and it won't change any time soon.

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This. And something happened the last few election cycles in TN that probably happened elsewhere too. The Koch brothers and other conservative interest groups poured so much cash into state rep and state senate campaigns that they became several 100k to million dollar races - for freaking state house jobs that don't even pay full time! Until recently, if you had a little bit of money saved up and the connections to land you the right speaking gigs in front of voters you could run for the state house on less than 10k (many much less than that) and the state senate for around 30-50k (also a lot of districts didn't cost anywhere near that).

However, the infusion of outside national money has made it impossible for Joe and Jan Schmoe to run an effective race against that kind of money. State Senator X may well be hated and incompetent but he's bankrolled to such a degree that Joe Schmoe's campaign stands no chance.

It's a mess and TN treats being a senator or house member as a part-time job which was fine when we were all farmers and the legislature met during the non-work period and ended just in time for all the harvesting, planting, selling, etc. to done. But that world is long past and you can't pay these men and women part time wages for what is now a full-time job and not expect them to make up the money in a way that's either against the rules or downright illegal. We have a system that is setup to almost guarantee corruption happens -- so much so that it's strange, even treated with suspicion, when someone plays by the rules.