Change means something different, not more of the same

The New Jersey Legislature is currently filled with a breed of person known as the "career politician." I believe the notion of the "Trenton Democrats" misses the point. When the state was under Republican control, it was just as corrupt, just as much traveling in the wrong direction and absolutely as spend thrift as it is today.

Career politicians are the problem. People who do not work real jobs: They do not manufacture anything, grow anything, refine anything, produce anything or significantly contribute to society in any way. They make money and are important for its own sake. They simply live off peddling their influence and work to perpetuate influence as a way to just make a living (a very nice living no doubt). No good will come of people of that ilk, no matter what party they registered in. For anyone to believe that one career politician is better than another by virtue of registration is absurd.

In the "hallowed halls" of Trenton, the idea of partisanship fades. I was at a party at a N.J. legislator's house a few years ago (not from any Monmouth district). Amid the merriment, the legislator discussed how a prominent elected official in the Legislature from one party was the "errand boy" for a prominent elected official in the same house in the Legislature from another party. The two reportedly had a financial-business relationship that was "a lot more important to them than any party nonsense." I think this was the punchline for some joke or other.

So how can there be an adversarial system in place, as the "Republicans" and "Democrats" are supposed to be, when the Trenton Country Club's members start doing their "business" together, using the party system as the 'show' for the 'rubes? They cannot.

No one that is part of the problem can ever be a part of any solutions. The purpose of elected office should not be to perpetuate a useless class of person whose only skill is to be well-polished in public and pointless legislatively. This kind of person is prone to becoming corrupt, because their skill set is more suited to hair care and less to the business of the public.

There are legislators, some Democrat and some Republican, who deserve a round-trip ticket back to Trenton. But most do not. Buying into some yarn that one party is going to do so much more than another is more than naive at this part of the game. Change means new faces: people coming out of the private sector or successful careers not involved with politics, and then them putting their shoulder to the grindstone on doing the work of the people.

Career politicians have killed this county, this state and this nation's economy. The only financial issues that have prospered under this kind of leadership are personal ones, linked to the politicians involved. Change means something different, and not more of the same.

Voting the way that any newspaper, TV program, partisan pamphlet or personality tells you to, simply because they 'say so' is not going to help anything. If someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it? Use your head, and maybe a little bit of your gut. If it makes sense, it usually is, and if it doesn't really, then it doesn't.