I was eating lunch at Shannondale Assisted Living with my mother and some of her friends and the subject of me being a candidate for US Representative came up. One elderly lady said ” I won’t vote for you, I LOVE Jimmy Duncan.” A second lady said “I will vote for you.” The first said to the second ” Don’t you like Jimmy Duncan?” and the second ( a very astute woman ) said “No, he’s been there too long and he doesn’t have any new ideas.”
Those two elderly women summarized my campaign:
- US Representatives stay in office too long and our representative has a very poor understanding of many important issues.
- People all over the country — including people in East Tennessee — love their own US Representative even though they think most of the other US Representatives are incompetent — or worse.
The writers of the Constitution of the United States intended for US Representatives to serve short terms and be very close to the people and what they were thinking and to reflect short term changes in thinking among the people. The Senators were to serve longer terms and they were to be insulated from short term changes in public opinion (they were appointed rather than elected).
HOWEVER, the US Representatives have not wanted to be in office for a short time and they have made it almost impossible to defeat them once they are elected and seek re-election. Look at John Duncan’s web site and see how many wonderful things he does for people and then look up some other US Representative web sites so you can realize — ALL MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DO THIS AND IT MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO DEFEAT ANY OF THEM.
The elderly woman at Shannondale knew what she was talking about: “Don’t you like Jimmy Duncan?”
“No, he’s been there too long and he doesn’t have any new ideas.”