The Tea Party needs to realize that entrenched legislators don't want reform

You ask if it's time to demand that we reform our election process and make it more equitable for regular folks, third-party candidates, or independent candidates to run as viable candidates. I believe the answer is obvious. Yes, without question. Reforming our election process is an issue that often gets overlooked by issues like the national debt. But I believe that reforming how our representatives get elected is fundamental in the fight to restore the values of limited government that our great nation was founded upon.

The Tea Party can preach universal democratic values and constitutional principles all they want, but unless Tea Party leaders decide to publicly back and support Tea Party candidates and influence the election process already rigged to protect the incumbents of both parties by providing Tea Party candidates with campaign support, then Tea Party efforts to restore limited government will ultimately fail.

It is obvious that the biggest battle the Tea Party needs to win is election reform. Without true election reform in this country the game will also favor candidates from the two major parties and will always result in candidates that will ultimately support bigger government to win elections. The process is cyclical. Why do you think incumbent lawmakers always want to run around and flaunt big checks?

It is obvious at the mere basic level the process upon which individuals decide to run for office in this country needs reformed and Tea Party leaders should demand it. However, whom are you going to make the argument to? Will you make this argument to the same folks who now redistrict all of their legislative seats so they can never be beaten without some sort of electoral miracle?

Are you going to ask the same folks who are now so incredibly beholden to their party that they vote the party line no matter what the issue? Are you going to ask the folks who can now get unlimited funds from corporations, much of it without disclosure, to please make elections more equitable regarding contributions?

If so, I wish you the best of luck. However, I think your "demands" have the same chance of being successful as does sprinkling fairy dust on their foreheads. What motivation do they have to take even the smallest chance of losing their jobs by considering this reform when, in most part, they have done everything imaginable to sustain their present positions? Appealing to legislators at the state or federal level to adopt this or any reform that threatens their positions is a fool's errand.

Thanks to unlimited, special-interest funding, gerrymandering of legislative districts, and tightfisted, two-party control, government at the state and federal level is essentially broken and beyond repair. The concept of a government by and for the people has so perished from this nation that Jefferson is not rolling but spinning over and over in his grave.