What does that buy us, when politicians ignore campaign promises and so much of this is secret enough that it takes more than 4 years to come out?

politicians ignore campaign promises You should back or elect different candidates. Don't simply choose the candidate others have chosen for you, get involved earlier in the process to make sure the person you're voting for has a greater chance of voting for the issues you care deeply for.

That worked really poorly with the last "Hope & Change" candidate.

If you suggest voting for an independent... That is sort of a pipedream in the current US election climate. Noble thought and effort to push for such a candidate, but they have little to no chance of actually being electable. And even if they do get elected... Whats to stop them from being totally corrupted, or just overtly ignored by the rest of the government?

You think Obama had a hard time pushing through legislation? Just wait till some independent has to fight both Dems & Repubs on every issue because he/she isn't part of either party (and basically a slap in the face to their power structure.)

Edit: The biggest issue (in my opinion) at this point is the two party system that is entrenched beyond belief.

> Edit: The biggest issue (in my opinion) at this point is the two party system that is entrenched beyond belief.

Entrenched to hopelessness.

Money buys politicians so much power and there is no amount of regulation (which would have to be passed by those in power and getting the money, HA!) that could curtail it. Eventually you are going to step on someone's first amendment right to "say" (buy ads upon ads upon ads) what they want for/against another candidate.

I think the only way I can hope for actual change is for more people to get involved and not be so easily swayed by various types of media. But the majority is lazy..

There are 3rd party candidates...

In the election of my local representative there are only two realistic contenders - both from the 2 main parties. No one else has the resources to send out all the junk mail and recruit all the college kids to harass people.

And the funny thing is - just like probably most of the congress people - our representative isn't really all that bad. She's just not really good. She's just a nice old lady that's a vanilla career democrat. The chances she'll be voted out are effectively zero.

So I just don't vote for people any more (i leave it blank). However, I still go to the polls to do the ballot initiatives

But that only works if what they say at the outset correlates sufficiently with what they'll do in office.

It's as if real political change requires investment in the process throughout various means for an extended period of time, isn't it?

I know, right?