Suffice it to say, you and I will never see eye-to-eye on that subject.
However, your reference to Daschle relates to my broader point.
Namely, that the people's will is more powerful than any other force in American politics.
South Dakotans kept reelecting Tom Daschle precisely because they believed that he represented their interests in Washington D.C., in spite of philosophical differences.
Once it was brought to their attention just how little he and they had in common-and how ineffective he was in helping their state from a nonpartisan perspective-they defeated him.
However, all of the expensive ad buys, and RNC phone banks would not have made the slightest bit of difference if the people of South Dakota felt that he should be elected to a fourth term in office.
Yes, it's almost impossible to defeat incumbent senators, but what makes it even more difficult is the apathetic attitude that so many Americans take to politics.
McCain-Feingold, a.k.a. The Incumbent Protection Act, has made it even more difficult.
However, in some ways that anti-Constitutional desecration was an illustration of how weak that legislative chamber really is.
It showed us how petrified our purported voices in Washington our of their constituents.
If we can harness that fear for our advantage-in order to enact real change-then I guarantee you that this atmosphere of alienation and apathy will start to change.
You think they'd notice if 10 million pissed off Americans showed up in Washington bearing down on the senate building? I bet that would get their attention.
Please forgive me, I didn't recall debating the merits and demerits of the 17th Amendmend with you in the past. I didn't intend to start another argument over the subject, and was certainly not trying to win you over. I was merely trying to use the inherent corruption in South Dakota to illustrate my point—which might have been lost in the noise over the 17th Amendment. Please, if you will, allow me to try and illustrate it once more:
I would argue that Tom Daschle was continuously reëlected to the Senate not by the will of South Dakotans, but rather by firmly-entrenched ELECTORAL FRAUD which was pervasive on the Indian reservations within that State.
It was, by my logic, not necessarily "the people's will" that Daschle was recalled, but was instead the fact that, due to the reduction in illegitimate voting brought about by the electoral reform push that followed the Gore debacle that allowed the people of South Dakota to be heard for the first time ever!
Your fair state is another example of the problem that I'm trying to illustrate.
Do you think that Hillary would have a chance at all to gain a Senate seat, if it weren't for the entrenched Democratic voting apparatus in New York City? If it weren't for New York City, do you dare to bet for a second that she wouldn't have run off to a Chicago or Los Angeles to run, no matter who was currently seated there? It wasn't the citizens of New York State who elected her, but rather the entrenched Democratic stronghold that is the City!
Maybe we're both only seeing half of the picture... I approach the vote of the general population very hesitantly—first and foremost because the Democratic party has been so adept at blatantly manipulating the popular vote for so many years, and secondly because I feel that the population, corporately, is not fully aware of the way our Government is intended to work.
I'm also not saying you're completely wrong, either, but am merely trying to express the problem in the terms that I see it. (After all, we're the product of our learning, are we not?) You are most certainly right, in some cases, to say that the people retain Senators that they think are "useful" to them, though I shudder to think of the kind of person who would willingly vote for a McCain or a Feingold.
All of that aside, the corruption side of voting took a severe beating after the 2000 elections, and I think that we'll continue to see these people fall from power as elections become more honest. At least, that's all I can hope for.