Get ready for a new DC sport ...... Showvoting

[Stinky The Clown]

Actually, the sport itself is not new. It happens in the run up to every election cycle. What's new this time is that it has a name.

Showvoting

You know how it works. Congressionals of both houses and both parties tend to vote two ways: Party Line or Self Interest. The will of We the People is under glass, looking very quaint. An artifact of the past that perhaps never really was.

And then along comes voting season, a time of great pomp, circumstance, epiphany, egalitarianism, dare I say it, even Democracy.

Fingers stab the breezes of political discourse in the barber shops and hair salons along Main Streets across this land. We the People observe that rarest of phenomena, the elected official seeming to pay attention to them.

Where Congressman Slickhair has been voting as directed by that Lobby Over There forever, now that he has a challenger who seems capable of beating him, Slickhair goes against the Lobbyists with an impassioned floor speech and a vote against their latest industry-authored bill.

That's Showvoting.

Similarly, when a party hack and defender of the incumbent Powers That Be suddenly changes his support, view, defense, or furtherance of Party Dogma and strikes out as an opposition 'maverick', you can bet the farm and Grandpa's pension that there's a reason for such a quick turnaround, and it isn't some strong internal, moral compass. It is usually tied to Self Interest or Self Preservation. This change, too, is most likely a case of

Showvoting.

It isn't new. It simply now has a name.

Showvoting.