When are elections like sex?

(Hint: not just when your party gets screwed.)

Glenn Reynolds argues that elections serve the same purpose as sex.

Reproducing by fission is easier, cheaper, and conveys virtual immortality -- but a population that reproduces by fission is an army of clones, and a parasite that's well adapted to one population member is well adapted to them all. Sexual reproduction, by jumbling up genes every generation, forces parasites to try to adapt to a moving target, giving the host organisms an advantage that justifies all the metabolic energy they put into this more troublesome form of passing on one's genes.
My thought has been that elections play the same role for the body politic that sex plays for the body physical: Every so often, the voters throw the rascals out, and vote in a new set of rascals, meaning that the special interest groups, lobbying outfits, etc., that parasitize the body politic have to adapt to a shifting target. As scientist Thomas Ray has said, one rule of nature is that every successful system accumulates parasites. The American political system has been successful for a long time.

So is the answer the installation of more mechanisms to increase turnover? Should we limit congresscritters, for example, to a single term?

Maybe not.

In order to succeed, most sexually reproducing organisms have to do things besides reproduce. At the very least, a certain amount of time is required to grow to sexual maturity, and then competition for mates demands the expenditure of resources. An organism that hasn't acquired those resources is hosed.

Likewise, politicians, and political parties, are expected to do things besides win elections. The ability to do these things improves with practice and experience. You could do away with political parasites by limiting all politicians to single one-week terms, but any politicians you elect will be completely inept at their jobs.

Sex hasn't eliminated parasites, but it keeps the numbers down. Elections haven't eliminated political parasites, but it keeps the numbers down. In both cases, we have a balancing act between the desire to keep parasites from gaining too much experience, and the desire to allow the body (or body politic) to gain enough experience to function.