Is it all about the Game?

I have been deeply involved with the Democratic Party for quite a few years, including running for offices in hopelessly Republican races where the Dem candidate is largely symbolic. I spend too much time immersed in the minutia of national politics even though most of it has only a tangential impact on my life, or the people around me.

What happens in Lansing has the most direct impact since it determines how much money the schools will have to educate my kids, and whether the state is ever going to recover from its economic malaise. I pay attention to what is happening, and the results are really pretty dismal. For all the work I put into getting Democrats elected, their behavior once they are on the job has recently been so bad that I wonder why I bother?

A recent point in case is the bill passed in the Democratically controlled House to essentially re-monopolize the state's utilities under the guise of renewable energy. This is a terrible bill and it is a mystery why the supposedly progressive party has lined up behind the corporate utilities. That we are looking to the Republican Senate to fix this legislation is really ironic.

So it makes me wonder how much of politics is really the sport of it; the game and the winning? Are people (like me) who provide the energy to get politicians elected just suckers? Once our party "wins" do we lose touch with the real goal, which is to have better government? Do we work to elect incompetent hacks just so our side can have a majority? Unfortunately, the answer is sometimes yes.

I flatter myself thinking that political activists they are somehow superior to people at sports bars rooting for the Red Wings. I'm beginning to wonder.

Actually I'm past wondering. Go Wings.