This is your fair warning; this post is bound to be political in nature. Just so you know (and can quickly retreat if you hate the idea).
I?m annoyed by the presidential election process. I?ve been mildly annoyed for a long time but it has recently hit ?rant? point. As far as this coming election, well, I?m going to be voting for Bush, but I?m none to happy about it. My reasons are pretty simple: I dislike him less than I dislike Kerry (yes, this is just about the same argument as most of Kerry?s probable voters, but in reverse). In my view, that?s a very sad reason to vote for a candidate for President, but then, what choice do we have?
The plain truth is, even if there was a third party candidate who I really liked and felt was honest and would love to see in office (as opposed to the ?well, at least it?s not so-and-so? philosophy), I probably would not vote for that person. Why? Because I?m not willing to make my vote completely useless by voting for someone with no hope of making it. It?s kind of reverse voting, actually; I?ll use my vote to help defeat the person I?d least like to see in that office. I?m not voting for someone; I?m voting against someone, and that means that it?s a purely pragmatic decision instead of being based on vision and passion. I don?t think it?s healthy. Certainly it?s inauthentic.
Again, what choice do we have? I really see no practical choices except extreme political reform (and of course the chances of that are not really any better than the chances of a third-party candidate). Here are the main areas I see as needing attention:
Electoral Colleges. What are these about? Sure, I understand the original intention and believe that they were essential for decent representation of the people in early voting. But on earth are they still with us today? What possible justification is there for them in the twenty-first century? As best as I can tell, they uphold tradition and skew the will of the people—and do very little else. Certainly I realize that Bush would have lost without them (and I would have been very sad to see that, because as much as I?m not a diehard Bush fan, I positively shudder to think of Gore as President) but fairness is more important than my preference. That?s not to say that I think that Bush should not be president; the Electoral College system is a legal part of the process now and therefore needs to be followed. I?m saying get rid of it altogether.
Television ads. What do these accomplish, anyway? Each candidate reiterates that he is fabulous and wonderful and honest and brilliant and that the other guy is nefarious and inconsistent and bad for the country and will ruin your happy American life. In short, ?I?m better then he is.? Well, that?s reassuring now, isn?t it? I should hope that a person who didn?t believe that would not be running for office.
What are these ever-so-profound insights worth? Apparently, hundreds of millions of dollars—a good deal of it our money. In the 1996 election, out of the $232 million spent, $150 million of it was taxpayer money. Tell me; are sentimental, one-sided, mud-flinging presentations worth that kind of cash? I say ?no way!?
The two party setup. Why exactly is it that a third party candidate has a snowball?s chance in hell of getting elected? I have a real problem with the fact that the Republican and Democratic parties are so huge and formidable. How does narrowing the playing field to two mediocre liars serve the American people? One of those frequently-forwarded emails puts it this way: ?How come we choose from just two people for President and fifty for Miss America?? It seems to me that limiting the contest so disappointingly does very little beyond keeping people from actually having to think. Perhaps we?d be better off if we thought more often rather than just accepting a person because they?re part of a party.
It is absurd to only allow two or possibly three guys to participate in televised debates when there are others running who have something to contribute. Parties should not determine participation; the people should. For pity?s sake, it would be almost trivial to set up an online poll to determine the top six candidates that Americans would like to see in a debate.
The problem is that both parties are rather fond of their ?leadership? standing and have absolutely no interest in having anyone else taken seriously. And why should they, when they can get what they want by throwing more money out there? They don?t really have to convince anyone that what they want is worth the money, or that it?s in the interest of the American people; they just have to spend enough money saying ?the other guy sucks? to get their guy in. This leads me to my next, and biggest, point.
Campaign spending. Probably this topic is not a surprise after the last two. I think the biggest problem in the Presidential campaigns (and to a lesser extent, almost all political campaigns) is the utterly absurd amount of money spent in them. I feel that it?s grossly inappropriate to spend something like half a billion dollars on attempting to be elected. First, it?s not worth that kind of money. What an offering to ego, not to mention a damning and depressing testament to American values. Second, in that magnitude, it eliminates other, potentially better, candidates. Third, it allows the candidates to rely on money to the exclusion of far more honorable tactics like creativity, value, and passion.
I?d like to see campaigns limited to something like one million dollars. (Yes, feel free to gasp loudly at this point.) And when I say a million, I mean a million. Forget that soft money crap. I?d basically say that if an advertisement mentions any candidate (either pro or anti), it must be associated with a registered candidate and count toward their total. Besides, a million dollars is low enough that we could easily have a small herd of candidates and it would be impractical to make mud-slinging ads about all of them.
I really like the idea of a wide field of candidates. Think about the most recent Democratic primary. It was actually interesting because there were a decent number of candidates, some of them even inspiring grassroots efforts. That?s where it?s at!
I really think the best thing about limiting campaign spending to a very low amount (in campaign spending terms) is that it would force campaigns to get creative. Certainly the internet would be more thoroughly used. There have already been some interesting applications of low-cost, high-impact tactics on the internet (see this article—it?s focusing on contributions, which would be less of an issue, but the concept is the same).
With only one million dollars, there is no way a candidate could saturate the country with bad television ads (and that?s a great thing if you ask me!), so they would have to think carefully about how to get television coverage. Why, they might have to do it the old-fashioned way: do something interesting or noteworthy! Interesting or noteworthy would get free news coverage, so the challenge would be to come up with meaningful, appealing events and appearances.
I?m sure that I?m na?ve and perhaps overly optimistic, and I don?t doubt that my ideas have 101 (or perhaps 1001) flaws, but I think that it can?t hurt to explore the issue and think about solutions. Incidentally, I?ve had to turn off comments on my site because I don?t have time to deal with the insane amounts of obscene comment spam, but if you?d like to comment on this post (or anything!) email me at sarah
at happyhumans dot com (replacing ? at ? with @ and ? dot ? with . ).
