Smart Politics Requires Smart Politicians

I know.  If you're anything like me, the phrase "smart politicians" makes you shudder.  It brings up mental images of men in smoke-clouded back rooms, chomped cigars clenched firmly in their jaws, while they decide which of the candidates will be Mayor, Governor, what have you.

But that's not what I mean when I say "smart politicians".

I mean politicians that have actual intelligence.

I don't know about everybody else, even you if you're reading this, but I do know that I've looked at both major (and several minor) parties' platforms and none of them agrees completely with my personal political opinions.  I'm fully aware that these platforms are written mainly by groups of fundamentalist fanatics within the party ranks (for those of you keeping score, that's "liberal-commie-tree-hugging-yadda, yadda, yadda" for the Democrats and "fascist-vindictive-tea-partying-yadda, yadda, yadda" for the Republicans) and rarely reflect the views of the mainstream of either party.  These are people who would happily sell out their whole families in order to serve the interests of the far-right/far-left agendas they have and they are the ones creating the expressions of what the party believes, usually to the chagrin of the moderate party member who sadly shakes his/her head, often with their heads firmly planted in their hands and wonder what happened to the party they believed in and were proud to belong to.

Smart politicians are those who actually study the issues, not just what the lobbyists and their party leaders say, not just the positions THEY take, but actually look at what real issues are and decide what position they should take, what's best for their district/state/precinct and, ultimately, what's best for the country.

Some of you, those that don't know what I do for a living perhaps, may wonder what exactly I'm talking about.  The issue that is foremost on a lot of people's minds today is public education.  It is time for politicians to be intelligent, realizing that cutting public education is by far not the best idea of the day.

You can't solve present problems by destroying the future and taking away from education just makes it more difficult, even impossible, to help the adults of the future (the children of today, natch) receive the best they can.

So hold your politicians responsible.  I don't care if you are a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, or a Green.  You can even claim the Whigs or Federalists for all I care, but it's more important than ever that you reach out to the people that represent you to tell them what's important to you.  Tell them what you demand they do as part of the condition for getting to keep their jobs in 2012.

Make them be truly smart politicians and make them practice smart politics.