What anti-incumbent fever?

Last night, Rachel Maddow talked about the anti-incumbency wave that's "sweeping across America." She listed all incumbents from Congress (the House and the Senate) who have won vs. those who have lost so far in the primaries. Out of 324 races this year, only 7 incumbents have lost. That's an anti-incumbent "sweep" of just over 2%. So that is a 98% re-election rate! The old Cold War Communist Politburo (which we in the the good ol' U.S. of A. thought the "elections" there were obviously rigged) should have been so lucky.

I like her examples of how the press is trying to make this an anti-incumbent year,

Check out this contortion in today‘s “Washington Post” in an article about tomorrow‘s primaries. Quote - see if you can follow this, “The contests offer more evidence that establishment candidates can prosper in this year of the outsider.”

Translation, we‘re still calling it the year of the outsider no matter how many outsiders lose, no matter how many insiders win. We like this story too much to change the headline.

This was another one, another really good one. This was from the Associated Press last week before Washington State‘s primary. Here‘s the quote, “Fighting off anti-incumbent fervor, President Obama is rallying Tuesday for Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.”

And then, after Sen. Murray won that primary, there was this from the “Seattle Times,” quote, “The primary results in both the Senate and Congressional races showed a few signs of the sweeping anti-incumbent sentiment seen in some other states.”

Though, like she said, when you view Fox News (or any other cable news outlet) tomorrow, watch how they will say something like, "John McCain (or any incumbent who wins) beats the national anti-incumbent movement" or some such. Maddow calls it (The national anti-incumbent movement, that is) the "story that won't go away"...

What's amazing is that this Congress has had one of the lowest approval ratings in history. Here's what that says to me. An American thinks that the House of Representatives and the Senate suck big time and are a bunch of egomaniacs who care nothing for the people and everything for the rich and powerful, but not MY Representative nor MY Senators! And the pundits keep saying the people are smart...