Democrat Barack Obama decries the "bitter " of our politics and talks about building a new governing coalition of "Democrats, Independents, who are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington." It's time to put old battles behind us, he says, and start solving problems.

Sounds great, right? Unfortunately Obama is not the only one who has uttered those or words similar, which turned out to be simple rhetoric no matter their original intent. Why?

You know, I believe that everybody, including our legislators, have forgotten that they were elected to their respective offices to “represent the people.”  However, somewhere along their once wide-eyed optimism faded and was replaced by money, power and the prestige of belonging to that “good ‘old boys club,” …CONGRESS. 

There is no doubt that the answers to the ills of our society and the problems of greatest concern to American citizens could be solved now, with relative ease if our legislators were not impeded or swayed by special or self interested parties. 

That statement is worth repeating for in it lays the unadulterated truth of our democracy’s dilemma. That those we have entrusted with our future and our children’s future have become prostitutes.  

They know or at least most of them know what the right thing to do is but time after time they vote against the wishes of their constituency and what is documented to provide a solution. 

Social Security, Healthcare, Education, Employment, and Alternative Energy, etc., etc. The list is long and the solutions are known and what is extremely frustrating is that all that I have said is no secret. In fact we hear and read about it all of the time by politicians and pundits that espouse the evils of the special interests that have a stranglehold on our democracy,  

Democrats and Republicans 

Most Americans are ignorant of the fact that our first President, George Washington, did not belong to a political party. He believed they did not best serve the people's interests. This made him America's only President who was elected as an independent. 

In fact most of America's founding fathers, wise men all, were opposed to political parties, and wanted none of them in the U.S. America's first political party was the Federalist Party founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1792 and controlled the government until 1801. 

America's second political party was the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1792 in order to oppose the policies of the Federalists. The emergence of the Democratic-Republican Party marked the beginning of the U.S. two-party system. Jefferson was reluctant to create a party because he was opposed to political parties in general because of their power struggles for control of the government, but he felt that founding an opposition party was the best way to protect the rights of citizens from the consolidation of power in the federal government that the Federalists favored. 

SOLUTIONS 

Two-party systems, by their nature, allow third parties to occasionally arise, gain support and ultimately supplant one of the two major parties. Like when the Republican Party replaced the Whigs in the 19th century United States. Therefore, the two party system in the U.S. occurred to prevent one party from gaining too much power, by creating a second party with opposite policies. 

Third parties can draw attention to issues that may be ignored by the majority parties. If the issue finds resonance with the voters, one or more of the major parties may adopt the issue into its own party platform. Also, a third party may be used by the voter to cast a protest vote as a form of referendum on an important issue. Third parties may also help voter turnout bringing more people to the polls. …..IS A THIRD PARTY THE ANSWER?

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Another possible solution was introduced by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) when he declared in his second inaugural address that, "we have the opportunity to move past partisanship, past bi-partisanship to post-partisanship. Post-partisanship is not simply Republicans and Democrats each bringing their proposals to the table and working out differences.

"It is Republicans and Democrats actively giving birth to new ideas together. I believe it would promote a new centrism and a new trust in our political system," he said.

Optimistic and extremely naive considering that it goes against the inherent human nature of most politicians that will succumb to the allure of money and power before they will embrace the “selfless” acts of post-partisanship.

Lastly, it is our belief that instead of challenging “human nature,” especially with these people (politicians), it would be much easier to eliminate the “tempters,” i.e., Lobbyists. The sole job of a Lobbyist is to sway politicians and their votes to support them and the interests they represent……. PERIOD!

I do not have high hopes for politicians to change the rules of a game that they have benefited so greatly from. There have been attempts to adopt legislation that would limit (barely) what Lobbyists and Special Interest groups can do. Mere “Band-Aids” to a serious problem.

Partisanship is a natural phenomenon as it is the “nature of man” to be “territorial and protect that which is theirs so the solution cannot be left up to the naive hope that in the end our political representatives with do the right thing. The tempters and objects of their temptation need to be removed from the equation if there is to be any hope for real, significant change.