I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that this election is over. Patty Murray and Dino Rossi sounded like the two most horrible people in the state (if you believe their commercials). Do we elect a guy who favors Airbus over Boeing, and thinks that military service is meaningless, or the lady who votes yes on every tax she can get her hands on and is solely responsible for bankrupting America?

The past two elections have each been described as the “most important election of our time” but, I’m not buying it. To me, this election has just been more of the same, except that the wild swings between choosing Democrats or Republicans are starting to get closer together. That’s not due to huge enrollment shifts in either party, but due to exasperated independent voters like me.

These wild swings are partly due to the rise of the Internet, which allows us to print anything, show any video, and anonymously circulate our anger at politicians and their agendas with instant results. By the time I received a copy of one frustrated American’s “Congressional Reform Act of 2010” e-mail rant, several critiques had already been attached to it, including one criticizing the first critic.

Now that these angry people can communicate much more easily, it’s led to a polarization of principles on both sides. The prevailing thought is, “there’s no need to compromise any longer; millions of Americans think just like me!” That’s made it easier to test a new strategy by both parties to block any legislation from taking place.

The past two years, it’s been the Republicans, who have made it their primary goal to make sure that Obama is a one-term president. Several of the talking heads, including the likely future Speaker of the House John Boehner and Rep. Mike Pence (a likely Republican 2012 presidential candidate) have both said that they are not going to compromise at all with Democrats.

You can count on Democrats returning the favor when they’re in the minority, and I think we can all count on gridlock and a government shutdown for at least the next four years. The Congressional approval rating is at about 19 percent, and it will probably get worse. That whooshing sound you just heard? Oh, that’s just China passing us by while we bicker amongst ourselves.

So what is a frustrated independent voter to do? “Throw the bums out!” Well guess what, we’re just sending in some new bums. The bums might change, but the partially broken system that will quickly assimilate them is still the same. Plus, once these new bums arrive, the established bums aren’t going to just seat them at the head table. Even bums have a social pecking order.

This is usually the part in the column where I come out with some crazy idea that just might work. Strong third and fourth parties? Elect candidates via the lottery? A charismatic dictatorship? Turning the Maple Valley legacy site into a functioning city hall and replica of the “Back to the Future” movie set for a great tourism draw? OK, I just can’t let that one go.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a great idea this time. I’d love to be able to elect people who vote purely with their conscience, who are immune to corruption, and only work to serve the greater good regardless of party affiliation. But those candidates are hard to come by, because being a national politician is not a job for those kinds of people. They simply won’t run, because the business of politics is ugly, and pure-hearted people are afraid of turning ugly.

We can change this system if we reject the ugliness, but we’re not there yet. We’re still at the toddler stage of learning how to use our shiny new communication toys, and relate to each other in a civil, mature manner.

We seem to want a change at the polls, but we have to change ourselves first.