Political Communication blog

I receive a Washington Post newsletter called "Politics Daily". On this site I have access to the complete 2006 election. Today, I was reading the newsletter and looking through the various campaigning and noticed that most of the races were labeled incumbent, safe Democrat, or safe Republican. I knew this information already, but it was still disturbing. First of all, if an incumbency almost guarantees re-election (it does.) why would the incumbent be interested in working for the people who elected him? The same could be said for party safety. If a district is safe Democrat or Republican, why would the party of choice be interested in working hard for the people who made their place safe for that particular party? This is the security that many of our least effective politicians possess. People have trapped themselves within a label. They possess their membership to a political party as a part of their identity. Then, they conform to their own perceived beliefs of what that party stands for. Things should be the other way around. A person should be able to vote Democrat and be against excessive gun control. Similarly, a person should be able to vote Republican, without having to say "I'm for guns". People are not obligated to one single party. The extremely well educated people who are responsible for information dispersal in the U.S. have polarized the country by making people feel they must hold all the principles of their group-of choice without variance. With honest instrospection, can you be a complete liberal, conservative, Republican, or Democrat? I honestly believe Americans have forgotten their power as both voters and consumers. This does a great service to corporations, politicians, media content providers, and other related technocrats.