Why Do We Elect These People?

We Don't Want the Honest People

This week a television ad linking Florida Republican Rep. Tom Feeney to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff is airing in his Orlando area district. The TV ad is funded by Feeney's own campaign. Feeney's ad apologizes for a 2003 golfing trip to Scotland that the disgraced lobbyist, Abramoff paid for calling it "a rookie mistake." Feeney re-paid the $5,643 cost of the trip to the U.S. Treasury. In the fall of 2000, Tom Feeney, the future Speaker of the House of Representatives in Florida, a lawyer and lobbyist, requested a computer application program to alter the vote tabulation. Saying he was still a rookie in 2003 is a stretcher of the imagination, and waiting until 2008 to apologize to his constitutes is a bit much.

The ads come on the heel of the news; Florida will not persecute Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican Florida congressman for exchanging inappropriate e-mails and instant messages with teenaged congressional pages. Foley resigned in 2006, and is said to be using his congressional clout to stonewall the investigation. Is there no one running for election a voter can trust?

Whistleblower Clinton Curtis loses the congressional seat in Florida's 24^th district to Feeney in 2006. Curtis ran and loss in 2008 to Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, a former member of the Florida House of Representatives and a small business owner. Curtis filed an official complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), alleging that Kosmas made illegal and deceptive campaign calls from within the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) offices, on party phone lines. Being honest not too good for political careers?

Why do we vote the way we do? A seemingly honest man that tells the truth can't get elected. So as voters, what are the characteristic we look for in elected officials? I suspect we pick friends, work environment, spiritual advisors, and experts the same way. Do we look for our perception of what we think these individuals are, and not the way they actually are? Are we electing people through celebrity worship syndrome? Do we look for the candidates with the same characteristics election after election, and still expect change?