Vote Anti Incumbent

Alan Abramowitz, a political scientiest at Emory University makes the point that congress is very unpopular, even more so than President Obama whose approval rating has dropped, but still hoovers around 50%.  But in December only 5% of Americans approved the job that Congress was doing. That was still better than the 19% approval for the previous Congress.

He goes on to say the Congress is usually less popular than the president and frequently much less popular.
He continues: Discontent with Congress appears to reflect a widespread perception of the legislative process as complicated, inefficient, and corrupt. Americans find it hard to understand how Congress works and most of the information that they get about Congress from the media tends to be negative—focusing on partisan conflict, controversies, and scandals. But voters don’t blame their own Senators or their own Representative for these problems.

Therein lies the problem of why don’t we vote out incumbents if we don’t approve of the job they are doing.  We don’t like your Senator but we still vote for our Senator who represents us.  We are right you are wrong.

They tend to see their own Senators and Representatives as the rare good apples in an otherwise rotten barrel. Maybe that is because they reflect the views of the population in your area.

That explains why, despite the low ratings that Congress usually receives, reelection rates for congressional incumbents have remained very high—averaging around 95% for House incumbents and 80% for Senate incumbents over the past three decades.

Read more of Mr Alan I. Abramowitz article.

Republicans have been acting like jerks disrupting town halls meetings in a crude and disrespectful way and now one of their congressmen (Joe Wilson of SC) did the same, with a heckle to the Presidential of “You Lie” during his speech to the Congress about Health Care. Republicans are using their “town hall” style disruptions now in congress.  If you are in Joe Wilson”s district of Columbia, Beaufort and Hilton Head Island SC, then you should be very disappointed, maybe enough to call his office and complain.  And them vote him out of office. See JoetheHeckler.com
For the rest of us, Republicans have repeatedly disappointed us with their conceited I know better than you attitudes.  No matter that they lost the election, they just step on the gas going in the wrong direction.   Their right wing extremist followers love it, but that will get them nowhere but some camera time.  The rest of us just shake our heads and vow to stay clear of these extremists and their win at any costs.

According to Wikipedia, Joe Wilson has a past history of outbursts:

Controversy over “hatred of America” remark

On a 2002 live broadcast of the C-SPAN talk show Washington Journal, guests Wilson and Democratic congressman Bob Filner were discussing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. When Filner said that the US “gave” Iraq “chemical and biological weapons” in the 1980s, Wilson said this idea was “made up” and commented to Filner “This hatred of America by some people is just outrageous. And you need to get over that.” Wilson apologized for his remarks in statements to the press.^[15][16]

Criticism of Thurmond’s illegitimate daughter

In 2003, following Essie Mae Washington-Williams‘ revelation that she was the illegitimate daughter of Wilson’s former employer, the late Senator Strom Thurmond, Wilson was among those who publicly doubted her claim. Wilson said even if her story was true, she should not have revealed it because “it’s a smear” on Thurmond’s image and was a way to “diminish” Thurmond’s legacy.^[17] After Thurmond’s family acknowledged the truth of Washington-Williams’ revelation, Wilson apologized but said that he still thought that she should not have revealed that Thurmond was her father.^[18]