Love 'em or hate 'em, we still need 'em.
Draw any conclusions from last week's elections? Me too. Let's see if they're the same.
The most obvious is that the voting public voted to t'row da bums out. Not realizing, apparently, that the current crop of bums had little if anything to do with the current predicament. Then who or what's to blame? Capitalism would be the obvious choice, but as always my vote goes to human nature. Voters also apparently didn't realize that the way to "get Washington moving again" isn't to send a bunch of uncompromising ideologues to Congress.
So let's see: we've got a broken system—or at least some people claim it's broken—run into the ground by the irrelevant—or at least some people claim they're irrelevant—professionals in charge—or at least they call themselves professionals—burdened with a collective image just slightly more favorable than Saddam Hussein's, and living off the fat of the land while the honest God-fearing people they represent tighten their belts another notch. Or maybe we've got a system that isn't perfect but reflects the will of the majority (no matter how much a vocal minority protests it doesn't), run by highly visible targets for public anger.
Change a word here and there, and I've just described the mainstream real estate industry.
On the other hand, the result of our gubernatorial race suggests that most California voters prefer experience to inexperience, the hardened pro albeit with baggage to the fresh new face no matter how fixed the smile and messianic the packaging. We don't hold career politicians in the highest esteem, but most of us seem to recognize they serve a useful purpose in a highly specialized if rather unsavory field.
Change a word here and there, and I've just described the appeal of the mainstream real estate industry.
Well, we'll see who comes through for us this time, the old face or the new faces. Or maybe time itself will come through, as it always has, no matter what cast of characters we saddle it with.
As for staying power, one of the more rational political pundits I've heard says that in two years most of the just-elected Congressmen will be gone, symptoms of a national fever that eventually cures itself, victims of their inability to do what we hire politicians to do, whether we know it or not: move the ball forward by listening and advocating but also compromising and deal-making. (Which is exactly what buyers and sellers hire their agents to do, whether they fully understand it or not.) You'd be hard-pressed, however, to find a public servant with more staying power than the old pol Jerry Brown. Brown may not have the most stellar image—although it would undoubtedly be better had he been governor in the go-go '60s rather than the hung-over '70s—and I suspect that many of us wondered how an old retread with the derisive nickname "Governor Moonbeam" ended up the sole viable alternative to a teleprompter-reading Capitan of Industry, but Brown was a known quantity to voters, as in "better the devil you know than the devil you don't".
Change a word here and there, and I've just described the appeal of the mainstream real estate industry.
So let's see what we've got: a vote for radical change nationally that will almost certainly lead to no change; a victory for the take-my-government-back little guy that the little guy will probably take back come the next election; and here in California, a vote for the tried-and-true over the Next Big Thing.
California sends a message of reason.