THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE No. 1
"2006 Mid-Term Elections"

Last Sunday, I watched a story on "60 Minutes" about Nancy Pelosi and her plans for becoming the first female Speaker of the House should the Democrats take control after the mid-term elections on November 7. I'll be honest, she scares the Hell out of me. Not because I'm a Republican and she's not. But because she's selfish, self-centered and only about progress if it's on her terms.

As a Creative Director and a writer, my whole existence is defined by generating ideas. That could be Nancy Pelosi's existence. It should be. But she's too busy placing blame on the Republicans for all the things they haven't done. Her party's too busy pointing out all the times Republican candidates have voted against bills the Democrats initiated even when they had so much pork, C-span had to run an advisory that said watching sessions of Congress could cause arteriosclerosis.

Articles describe Pelosi as managing the Democratic leadership with an iron fist, threatening to withhold committee chairmanships from those who don't adhere to her rules. She claims she wants to bring civility back to Washington, but it's her vitriolic condemnation of the Republican party and everyone in it that lies at the heart of the issue.

By her own admission, if the Democrats win back the Senate and the House on Tuesday, we can all look forward to two years of absolutely nothing getting done in Washington until the 2008 Presidential election. Now maybe I have high expectations, but I think it's a bit early to be mailing in two years of our country's potential because Nancy doesn't play well with others. Republican, Democrat, or other, I expect more than that from our elected officials, even if it means compromising.

Ah, the C-word. Therein lies the problem. Compromise is seen as failure. As losing. As selling out. And it doesn't seem to matter what the issue is. While there are some in the House and the Senate who do see the value of working together, too often they are exception and not the rule. Look at health care.

Every time health care issues come up, I'm angered and frustrated by the lack of leadership in figuring out the problem. I work with some tremendously smart and talented people. Given the relevant information and a fair amount of time, we can figure out just about any marketing problem thrown at us.

There are way bigger brains than ours, many of them in Washington. Why can't we figure out health care? Why? Because the big players in the issue simply don't want to. It's more profitable to be dysfunctional.

I offer health care as an example, but it could just as easily be energy, immigration, Iraq, foreign policy, social security, stem cells or a dozen more issues. When did us and them become more important than ideas and solutions?

Add the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the President together and there are 545 people making the decisions for the other 299,999,455 of us.

Don't you think it's time we expected more from them.