A friend of mine noted recently that he despised the “professional politicians” running amok in our system today.

I countered that an actual professional politician would be an incredibly good idea, but I’ve never seen one.

He asked for clarification, which I’m sure you would like to hear as well, gentle soul that you are.

We spend endless hours asking our candidates what they believe on hundreds of topics. A professional politician would ask in return, “What does it matter? As a professional, my job is to communicate with my constituents and find out how *they* want me to vote. If they ask me to vote in a way I personally find reprehensible, it’s my job to hold my nose, cast the vote as they told me, and then resign in protest.”

A professional politician would also craft bills with clearly-stated objectives and metrics for success, as well as a plan to roll back the law if it didn’t meet those metrics. In other words, the bill would contain language such as, “This bill is designed to reduce gun crime. If, in the span of two years after this bill’s enactment, the rate of gun-related crime has not been reduced by at least 20 percent, this law shall become null and void, unless continuation is approved by a simple majority in a public referendum.”

I’ve said for years that if programmers wrote programs the way our lawmakers write laws, we’d still be poking the guts of ENIAC with the tip of a cigar and saying, “Lookit all them wires in there!”

Yes, a political system full of actual professional politicians would be a great idea, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. It would require attributes such as “integrity” to be restored to importance.

My friend noted that his definition of “professional politician” referred to the lowbrows we now have in office, who are beholden to special interests and are more concerened with getting reelected or increasing their party influence than they are interested in representing their constituents.

I told him he had the term “professional politician” confused with the term “carpetbagger” and he seemed okay with that.