Voters' manifesto 2012

We American voters believe we have been exploited and abused for too long by self-serving, dishonest lawmakers. We think this is the chief reason why our federal government in Washington has come to its broken state of abject gridlock.

We think there is a 2012 election year issue that all voters can agree on, and that is the voters want genuine public servants who genuinely serve our country and its citizens, rather than ceaselessly dissembling and secretly pursuing private agendas of the lawmakers to serve their own interests and their special interest contributors.  If we don't get those, corruption and gridlock will go on and on.

We voters see evidence of this corruption in political scandals that come to light, criminal charges that are brought, the legislative earmarks lawmakers cannot stop making even though they say they will end it, the gerrymandering that goes on, the passing of halfway ethics reforms only because heat has gotten turned up, and the revolving door between government and lobbyists.

Moreover, we voters think that the corruption we see is only the tip of an iceberg.

We voters believe that our self-serving lawmakers manipulate and exacerbate legitimate partisan differences among voters in ways calculated to gain and keep elective office and to distract the voters from focusing on the real self-serving agenda of the lawmakers, which results in polarization, gridlock, and our broken government.

We voters believe the problem of corruption, polarization and gridlock has been growing for 20 years, Congress has failed to solve the problem, a tipping point has been reached, and the 2012 elections present an opportunity for us to unite and take action against our corrupt and broken government in Washington that has failed us.

To that end, we voters pledge that, in this election, we will make the culture of corruption in Washington DC, and gridlocked and broken government that has resulted, the most important issues for us. We will tell that to Obama, the Republican Presidential contenders, incumbent Senators and Representatives, and their challengers in every way we can. We will demand that incumbents confess to the voters about their own corrupt transgressions in the past, that, using their campaign resources for research and investigation, they will name names and give details about lawmakers who they believe have been transgressors, starting with the most egregious transgressors in their view. We will demand that Obama and the Republican contenders call upon Congressional candidates of their own party to do the same thing, that is for those candidates to confess about their own past transgressions and name names and give details about other transgressors. If information is not forthcoming to our demands, we will assume the incumbent lawmakers as a group are covering up and protecting one another, and need to be voted out of office. We will demand of those candidates who are challenging the incumbents make the same demands of the incumbents in very loud voices. We voters will closely observe all that happens in response to our demands that we make on the incumbents and their challengers. Based on that, we will decide which of the candidates we most believe, if they are elected, will be honest public servants and will reform the ethics laws and take other legislative actions to eradicate corruption in our lawmakers, and we voters will vote accordingly.

We voters believe that the root of the corruption and gridlock is the campaign financing system, and we will demand that bold action be taken to reform it immediately. We will demand that Congress forthwith propose a constitutional amendment that provides that the First Amendment right of free speech applies only to huma beings. In conjunction with the foregoing, we voters will demand that Congress shall debate, in full public view, legislative bills that provide for a system of anonymous campaign contributions and a system that bans private communications between lawmakers and their constituents. The object is for Congress to enact something as early as possible in 2012. The longer it drags out without Congress taking action, the more we voters will judge that the incumbents do not understand the adamantcy of our demands and the greater is the need for the incumbents to be voted out of office in favor of new faces who give more assurances that they will act if elected. If Congress passes an enactment that the voters find too weak, that also will lead to eviction from office.

We voters will make clear that we will do exactly the same thing in 2014 if it turns out we think we have been deceived by Obama, the Republican contenders and other candidates in 2012.