The weirdest example was Joe Miller running on "its horrible that the Alaska government gave the Governor's daughter a U.S. Senate seat, but things would be soooooo much better if they'd just repeal the 17th so she could have that seat for life without pesky elections in the way!"
That, and Rick Perry running a schizo platform of "its horrible that we amended the constitution so voters can choose the legislative branch instead of having politicians appoint them, but things would be AWESOME if we the amended the constitution so voters can choose the JUDICIAL branch instead of having politicians appoint them!
I recall Ted Cruz came out in favor of it a few years ago. That was ironic since the Texas Leg, led by RINO Speaker Joe Staruss and RINO Lt. Governor David Dewhurst would have with 100% certainty elected Dewhurst (hmmmmmmm funny how that works eh?) whilst GOP primary voters instead selected Cruz.
You could forget about any decent Senators being elected because RINOS and democrats would team up to elect RINOs in every GOP-controlled state. Talk about an “open primary”!!!!!!! Alaska RINOs have teamed with rats to control the State House there, can you say “Senator for Life Lisa Murkowski”?
Sick of talking about this stupid crap. It isn’t even ON THE TABLE AND NEVER WILL BE. Try campaigning on it, you’d get friggin laughed at. The previous method of election was crappy and not working with seats left vacant whenever legislatures were too closely divide and elites bickered behind CLOSED DOORS. That’s why the 17th was OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVED.
In 1877 Illinois democrats used the Senate election in an attempt to bribe Supreme Court Justice David Davis into making rat Sam Tilden President. They didn’t count on Davis having a shred of integrity so it blew up in their faces. This is the kind of crap we should pining for a return to?
GIVING MORE POWER TO A BUNCH OF POLITICIANS IS STUPID BECAUSE ****DUH****. It’s not rocket science. Stop pining for an idealized past that NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED and use your BRAIN people. You expect a bunch of politicians being given MORE power and the people they represent LESS will make things BETTER? That’s loony tunes. The problem with our country is not electoral process it’s the existence of socialist pigs and weak-willed sissy “conservatives” (guess what? State legislatures are full of both). The pigs in my state leg don’t speak for ME. The people of the states are “the states” and they don’t need a small handful of middlemen to elect the most powerful legislature in the world for them.
The Senate was different from the House in 3 ways,
1)Equal representation for all states, by far the most important difference. You have liberals now proposing DC and Puerto Rico Statehood to solve their “We’re not gonna win the Senate and that’s not ‘fair’” problem. We’re gonna propose a more elitist Senate while they’re doing that? That would play right into their hands.
2)Term Length
3)Method of election was a distant third, stop fixating on it.
Ridiculous nonsense.
If you’re looking for a failed “reform” to eliminate I’d suggest civil service “reform”. Back in the day Republican Presidents could hire Republicans to work at the post office and stuff, democrat Presidents hired democrats. Now they’re all democrats all the time, fair huh? I doubt we could succeed in bringing back the spoils system but at least it would HELP US if we did. Tilt at the windmill.