Is the Illustration business really this bad?

This morning while driving my son to school, we passed a trio of political signs posted on someone's front lawn. John Alcorn, Robert Crawford and Stan Watts are all running for city councilman or some such position. Now community service is an honorable thing, and I applaud them for their dedication, but does this really mark some even deeper decline in the illustration business that all these great artists have to go into politics. That is a real low point.