According to Rasmussen, the American public is ready to hit the Congressional "Reset" button. In a recent poll 59% of voters said they would like to "throw them [Congress] all out and start over again." Only 17% felt that they should keep their jobs. This is a frightening statistic, especially for the 440 members of Congress who are up for re-election in a mere 29 days. Oh, and it gets better:

Only half (49%) believe that the current Congress is better than individuals selected at random from the phone book. Thirty-three percent (33%) believe a randomly selected group of Americans could do a better job and 19% are not sure.

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So, hey, you wanna run for Congress? The hardest part is getting your foot (Ferragamo or not) in the door.

More than 90% of Congress will most likely (barring a revolution) retain their positions as the people that speak for us this November 4th. The power of incumbency is tough to beat, especially when gerrymandering allows members of Congress to effectively pick their own voters, not the other way around. Mix in some high name recognition, full staffs funded by tax-payer dollars, easy access to news coverage and an unmatched money machine, and suddenly running for office is reserved for those who are either very wealthy or very crazy (read "courageous"). Seriously, we have a better chance at winning scratch-off tickets than winning a seat for Congress.

As the article notes, the nation's founders believed that Congress should (and would) have a 50% turnover rate, and indeed, for the first 150 years the House of Representatives experienced exactly that. But ever since the 1940's Congress' turnover has been dropping to what it is today, somewhere in the single-digits.

Combine this with the back-to-back approval rating of 9% and you have to admit, it's not a good year to be a member of Congress.