RCL3: Persuasive Essay

Thesis:

Careerism in politics has had many negative affects on the function of the United States governing system; at the heart of its problem is the divergence of the representative’s interest and constituent’s interest.

Justification for this topic:

I want to focus my persuasive essay on how careerism in politics has many negative affects and in particularly, how it affects the relationship between the constituents and their representatives.  The reason I was initially drawn to this was through some articles I came across recently.  Of course, you cannot just read one article and take it for the 100% truth, so I did further research and was able to find similar ideas and supporting facts across a range of sources.  This has led me to my position of being against career politics. 

This topic is one that fly’s under the radar for a lot of people, so I do not know of any major misconception about it.  The only misconception would come form the cliché statement that ignorance is bliss.  That is another reason I am interested in this topic, because it is not so main stream like, gun rights, social equality...etc.  As the writer it is more fun to present material to an unbiased audience, which can only be done when the material being presented in relatively unknown. 

I have some roughly worded potential topics form my paper below.  There is some much material that could be covered a challenge will be deciding what my most potent topics are and focusing on those, while also having to consider what set of topics will work well to promote logical progression and flow through my paper.

Potential Topics:

1. How the current system promotes career politicians

2. How effective can elected individual be if their income is dependent on their government positions?

3. How they can be influence by PAC's and Lobbyist

4. Low voter turnout in state and local elections almost ensures the incumbent re-election. (Presidential election is an exception to the lobbyist and PAC influence)

5. Entering politics should be because of a passion to change and help better the US, not to just have a long lucrative career.

Book Citation:

Katz, Alyssa. The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015. Print.