Yes, we can.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

As representatives, they shouldn't be voting party line anyways. They should be voting the way their home state feels to the best of their ability. Public opinion was vastly opposed to the bailout, so kudos to all who voted against it for representing the public.

Voting based on public opinion is no more or less valid than voting based on party lines.

They should be voting based on what they think will have the most favorable outcome for the country. The definition of "most favorable outcome" is hardly cut and dry. If they pass it and the economy still falters and the Democrats get voted out for passing a "bad" bailout (nevermind whether any further failures are the fault of the bailout or not) that they voted for but the republicans didn't, is that the "most favorable outcome?" from a Democrat's perspective? Not even in terms of the personal unfavorableness of losing one's job, but from the perspective of, "We got voted out for doing what we thought was right against public opinion, and now everything else we stand for is going to fall by the wayside because of that one issue."

That's just for starters. Such is politics. No vote is done in a vacuum. No vote is safe from being used to screw you in the future. It must really suck to deal with. Even if you're 100% sure of which vote is the "right" vote on a particular issue, you STILL have to stop and think and decide if doing the "right" thing on that single point will prevent you from being able to do the "right" thing on a larger scale down the line.