Term Limits

On Saturday a local Democratic physicist, Bill Foster, beat a well-known businessman, Republican Jim Oberweis, in a race to replace Denny Hastert, former Speaker of the House, who resigned his office in November.

Oberweis has run in four races in Illinois and lost them all. In every one of them he used scare tactics, and I think the people in his district have had enough. When he ran for Senator, he focused on how terrible immigrants have made the United States. His dairy employs illegal immigrants, according to recent news reports, and Oberweis isn’t a run of the mill American name like Smith or Jones or Graboski or Gutierrez or Moser.

In the recent campaign Oberweis’ hate message created mythical families and then showed how some of the policies that Foster espoused would damage them. The fact that Foster wanted to raise taxes on the one percent of wealthiest Americans, and that Oberweis applied the new tax rates to lower middle class mythical families, didn’t seem to bother his campaign, but it certainly riled voters. In Oberweis’ television commercials, he had families making less that $50,000 annually paying up to $8,000 more in taxes each year. Where would they get the money, they asked? From their retirement or kids' college funds? It was beyond belief that Oberweis thought voters were so stupid.

Bill Foster’s victory was an upset for Republicans who traditionally had easy campaigns in Hastert’s district. Pundits in the Tribune suggest that the Republican party in Illinois is in disarray, and that may well be true.

However, with Rod Blagojevch (blag – O – ye- vich) as the current disastrous Democratic governor, the Democrats seem to be in disarray in Illinois, too.

As I have said before, it is time to end party politics and start doing what is best for the country. That may well mean giving every single politician in power an unofficial term limit.

America for Americans is a nice slogan until you look at the connotations, the anti-everyone else bias in it.

I’d like, however, to suggest a new way of looking at the slogan. Let’s broaden our definition a bit. All citizens are Americans, and if people are from north or south of us, citizen or not, they are American, too. If we truly want our country to be for its residents and citizens, it has to stop being for politicians. I don’t mind the occasional statesman, but they are too few and far between. Let’s make America truly for Americans and vote against all the incumbents – and their parties. Unofficial term limits in action.

This is radical, I realize, but if our representatives realize that voters put them in office not lobbyists and heavy contributors with axes to grind, we might start getting some representation.

As always feel free to comment below.