Why do we have midterm elections? To screw the voter, that's why - What I am reading 11/6/2014

Nothing really exciting in the tech news this morning and I have already read all the "We Won" Republican election stuff, and honestly I am more interested in how e use the victory than in gloating over it, so here are a couple sour grapes articles to balance out the other stuff:

Quartz - Why the US is the only country in the world to have elections so often -

Midterm elections, in short, are expensive, distracting and conducive to irrational policies. It would be easy to write them off as a strange American aberration, one that other countries are wise to avoid—if it weren’t for the stubborn fact that they are clearly more democratic.

In fact, all of the bad features of midterms stem directly from the fact that they give the people more control. Midterms tend to foster short-term thinking—but only because voters tend to punish or reward politicians for such factors as the state of the economy. Midterms focus the minds of politicians on campaigns—but only because voters reward their representatives for taking the time to talk to them. And midterms tend to create political gridlock—but only because voters are often disappointed with their political leaders, choosing to limit their powers when they get the chance.

Ok, not quite as sour grapey as when I read it the first time, but the underlying text seems to me to be an assumption that mid-term elections are bad because they act as a check on the President's power.  To me that is a feature not a bug, and I would bet that in 2006 the Democrats felt the same. 

Washington Post - Midterm disaster rips apart awkward ties between Obama and Senate Democrats -

In the summer of 2011, Obama played a round of golf with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). From there, the duo got close to reaching a massive budget deal that would have raised taxes and cut entitlement programs — slashing at two political sacred cows for Republicans and Democrats.

But Reid’s operation, along with his close ally, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), did not trust Obama’s negotiating skills, and at one point they directly leaked the emerging proposal, timing the release precisely so that the news broke just as Jack Lew, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget, entered a meeting with Senate Democrats.

...

Reid, Schumer and other leaders and their advisers then waited to see the final details, furious that the deal was being made. Democrats leaked stories to The Post, Politico and other outlets about how at one point Reid took an offer that Obama was considering making to McConnell and threw it into the fireplace in his office on the second floor of the Capitol as others watched.

I for one am glad to see the depths of Republican obstructionism finally fully documented.  (What?  Wait, Reid is the Democrat Majority Leader?  Dammit!!!) OK,, strike that.  Obviously this is an attempt to start repairing damaged reputations, but for many Republicans it will back up what we already knew about how dysfunctional things are on the other side.