What choice do voter's perceive they have?

For the vast majority of voters, they only see a choice of Democrat or Republican. That is a false choice and perception. But, it is the prevailing choice and perception.

The question is, what are we, who know there are other choices: third parties, independent candidates, voting out incumbents of both parties, going to do to help voters become aware of their other choices.

It takes manhours and money to educate a population. If you have either to spare, make your donation of dollars here, or, of your time here.

Folks getting their hopes up for a huge anti-incumbent turnover, should pay careful attention to the following from the Wa.Post link in the article:

The poll measures broad public attitudes and cannot be translated into individual House districts, but it sketches an environment that is the most difficult the Republicans have faced since taking control of Congress in the 1994 elections. By a margin of 54 percent to 41 percent, registered voters said they plan to vote for the Democrat over the Republican in congressional elections next month.

What voters say to a poller, and what voters do in the ballot booth, can be two different things.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-Joseph Goebbels

Goebbels played a large role in helping the Nazis achieve and retain power by creating propaganda to present the Nazi ideology to the German people. No doubt he would fit right in with the spin doctors of today, regardless of their party affitliation.

Being in sales for many years I would often times say, "figures don't lie", or at least I used it until an old man replied, "I heard it said that only liars use figures".

Most people I know subscribe to "right is right and wrong is wrong" and much of what has and is going on in our world is wrong. The amount of repressed anger in our country will not stay repressed forever.

Until we have legitimate candidates to replace the incumbants we are only changing dirty underwear for dirty underwear. I am sure that the major paties have plenty of alternative candidates to confuse the voters at election time.

Wonder what would happen if the people were to infiltrate the two parties and force them to make changes from within? The changes that will have to happen must come from the bottom up, no small group is strong enough to battle the corruption that exist in todays system.

David you are doing a fantastic job trying to make people aware of what they can do to get change started. What concerns me is the lack of response to your postings. Are there just a handful of people out there that want to see change?

Change may be just a change of dirty laundry for dirty laundry but no change means no chance of real change.

I do see many reasons for optimism though, not least of which are poll numbers that indicate the majority of voters in this country consider themselves indepedents.

True, we will see when folks actually vote where their hearts and minds truly lie.

I know of no research on this topic which I can quote. But, I believe the vast majority of Congress persons ran for election to improve our nation. To get elected, they have had to depend upon the coffers of their political party, which means, once in, they are enormously beholding to their party.

Therein lies the first stage of corruption of otherwise good intentioned Freshman to Congress. Then comes the second stage. If they want to be reelected, receive Committee assignments which would allow them bring home the pork spending, they must do what the Party machine tells them, vote how their party machine tells them, and write bills the way the party machine tells them.

At this point they have the ultimate decision to make. To act in the best interests of their nation, or their party. Those who choose the former don't seek reelection, like former Rep. Joe Scarborough, those who choose the latter are thereafter corrupted.

There were no political parties when our founding fathers drafted the Constitution. If there had been, they surely would have observed how corrupting of good governance they would become.

The remedy is an ever growing base of independent voters. On this, Zeb has hit the nail on the head.

Yes, growing the base of independent voters is imprortant, and that will come naturally as voters become more educated and more disillusioned with their current party (and there's a lot of those in both main parties).

Education is the key.

The goal is to help be the educators now, before we are all replaced with a more effective educator called consequences. It's always a good teacher, but it would be nice if we didn't always have to lear the hard way.

I believe those polls spell trouble for some incumbents.

If only enough voters can be convinced to stop re-electing irresponsible incumbents.

Think about the math. The goal is not as insurmountable as one might think. If only 4% (5 million) of all (121 million) eligible voters stop re-electing irresponsible incumbents, it could result in a drop from 90% to 80% incumbency retention in Congress, and politicians WILL take notice. That is not herding cats. It's only calling upon a small percentage of the population that might gladly do so, if only they knew it were possible, and better than re-electing irresponsible incumbents politicians. There is also power in small numbers.

With the 'net and sites like this those who want change can see there are many others with like mind. So hopefully instead of fearing they're alone and not wanting to waste their vote, they'll vote for change knowing it could well result in change.