The Democratic Party is making use of new candidates for their "Drive to 25." The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is backing or has plans to back Democratic candidates in three dozen swing districts. Most of the candidates currently receiving backing have not held elected office before. The GOP also had a lot of new candidates when the took the House in 2010.
The message the new candidates are trying to convey is not that of a politician but one of a problem solvers who can break partisan gridlock. They are trying to get at independent voters who voted Republican in 2010. A new candidate California and former astronaut Jose Hernandez stated, "I'm an engineer. I'm trained to solve problems, unlike lawyers, which most of our Congress folks are; they're trained to litigate, argue, and I'm trained to solve problems."
I think that it is possible that the new-elects, if successful, will be used primarily as padding for the Democratic Party to get its items through while the districts of the new representatives get effectively less representation than their representative should in theory provide since the new representatives may not be able to hold the floor as skillfully when trying to direct funds to their districts. What are your thoughts, AP Gov folks?
1 comment:
I think that this article is very indicative of the gridlock in Congress. The major parties are constantly trying to over-power each other instead of working together and making compromises. While I know that competition is an important part of our democracy, it almost seems as though decisions will be reached much more efficiently if the parties are not evenly matched.
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