Re-election bids trump doing their job

Protesters against the oil pipeline

Obama is in a pickle. He has environmental protesters on one side arguing against the new pipeline from Alberta to Texas and business lobbies and job seekers on the other. But this is the job for which he campaigned so hard. Isn't it time he did that job and made those tough decisions? Instead he is delaying the decision for another year so that it cannot be used as election fodder against him next November.

Read this Times article for more details of this argument and links to details of the fight.

I'm tired of politicians believing that the main job of their first term is to get re-elected to their second term. If they would just put their heads down and do their jobs for a change we might get some real change happening in government. Instead we have a bunch of weathercocks out there bending to the whims of their interest groups and surveys.

Perhaps the term limits statutes need to be strengthened. Have every politician only serve for one term so that they can get some work done while they are in the positions they sought. No more looking over their shoulders for the impact their decisions will have on their re-election chances. Just do what you promised in the first place and then get out of the way for the next person.

The downside of this could be renegade politicians who don't care about anything since they're not coming back anyway. But a strong voter recall law can take care of that.

The only real 'downside' of this idea would be that there will be no career politicians since they can't make a career of it. Kind of what our founding fathers wanted in the first place. Wouldn't that be a nice kind of a utopia?