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	Name:	Yankee06
	Subject:	Simple answer
	Date:	7/23/2010 7:43:20 PM

In my view,
-Members of congress have three primary objectives while serving in D.C.: 1) reelection, 2) reelection, and 3) reelection
-House members up the chances of achieving these three major goals (i.e., reelection) by gerrymandereing their districts so these districts are upwards of 80% ideologically pure. Thus, teh house member must constantly support those bills and actions that keep his "ideologically pure" constituents happy. Since these house members are up for election every two years, they don't have time to work on "compromise" or coming to logical vs ideological solutions to problems.
-The only time independent voters in these congressional districts usually come into play in an important way is during presidential election years. At these times, house, senate, and national candidates become more moderate in their public positions, but only for teh purpose of snagging independent voters and after the election often go back to their old ways and do not take new courses of action to reach logical, long-term effective legislation.
-Remember, if every time a member of congress sits down to work on an issue, his first three priorities are reelection, reelection, and reelection, it's hard to think about priorities four, five , and six, no matter what they are.
-The Health Bill was a great example of this, ...however, under this theory, I do have problems understanding how teh leadership convinced some of the blue dog dems to commit poitical suicide. ...but then, when we hear about the offers of a new Louisiana Purchase, free Nebraska medicaid, Florida medicare exemptions, and public jobs, maybe it isn't so hard to understand after all.