[Zack Nguyen]

Ambition, power, a true desire to serve the public and give back, patriotism (like George Bush 41.) There are any number of reasons. Some listed above are admirable, but do not translate well into a coherent or visionary agenda when that is all the candidate believes.

[Durus]

I'll go along with the ambition and power part. As far as a desire to serve the public, giving back, and patriotism goes I don't think you can really feel that way without some sort of philosophical underpinnings. My concern is that an unfortunate amount of republican politicians chose the party out of favorable demographics rather then choosing the party that matched their principles. Another concern that I have is that most Democrats have strong principles. Progressive principles of course, which is a fancy way of calling themselves evil as far as I'm concerned, but deep seated unwavering principles just the same.

What we have ended up with is a party that is willing to compromise over any issue in the desire to be elected with an opposing party that will never yield their progressive ideals regardless of the fallout at the ballot box. All in the name of power of course. Progressives aren't limited to such niceties as honesty, reason, or fair elections though because part of their ideology is "the ends justifies the means".

This isn't a good situation to say the least and I think the only solution is to remove the power. Taking the money out of politics is easy in comparison to limiting the power of politicians to constitutional norms.

I am, as ever, open to suggestions.