If I had the financial independence to run for Congress, I absolutely would.. unfortunately I need to work for a living, and being able to sustain a living while even trying to run isn't something I'd be able to do. Beyond this, running as a Libertarian would be even more difficult.
First, I'm in favor of voting for no incumbents for a few election cycles... from there, I'd love to see actual politicians working to sell pragmatic choices towards consensus instead of the give/take we get today, with the boatloads of pork that come with it.
Such is the nature of democracy and all design by committee, accept it, it's better than the alternative: dictatorship.
> than a more pragmatic approach
Forcing more pragmatic approaches would require dictatorship and thus is simply not the correct measure to be looking at.
> If I had the financial independence to run for Congress, I absolutely would..
That wouldn't make any difference, there'd still be a committee and the resulting solutions will never be the more pragmatic ones.
Governing is about consensus among ideologically opposed members, not about correctness or efficiency.