I know you have already read my rant on what a waste of money is spent on this thing we call an election. (After watching Charlie Wilson's War, you get a sense of how much money plays a part in stupidity and our government) I'm sorry but I'm going to rant again.
The first part of this rant is about Iowa. I'm sorry they weren't smart enough to invent ground hog day or some other frivolous holiday and that their whole existence comes down to something that happens every four years - but for crying out loud - do we really need to have a caucus? On CNN, FOX, and MSNBC's websites are articles explaining what a caucus is. Why is this? Isn't the whole point of living in a democratic society is to have a voting procedure that every person can understand without the use of a CNN flowchart? Why should we have something so complicated that more people are asking what a caucus is than those that are asking "when the hell will the boys in Iraq becoming home?" Should a free society be free of complicated voting practices.
This leads to me second part of the rant. Why do we have so many primaries before we make it to the actual vote. A football season only requires 16 weeks to declare a world champion. Why do we need to have caucuses and primaries that start in January for a Super Bowl game that isn't played until November? I think it is time that we have an overhaul of democracy. I'd like to suggest these rules:
A candidate and his/her party can only spend $100 million dollars total.
Primaries are held for all 50 states on one day (let's say March 15). What ever democratic candidate wins that day goes on to fight for the vote in November. The same goes for the republican party.
The November election is a popular vote and not an electoral vote. (Once again, democracy is insulted every time to have to have a flow chart to explain how democracy works. Democracy should be simple - whomever has the most votes wins. Done.)
I can't help but think this would help the process along a whole lot better. Let's go back to making democracy easy to vote on.
(If for no other reason - I'm asking this so that my night of watching TV is only interrupted twice. Once on March 15 and once on the second Tuesday in November. This will beat it being interrupted 80 times.)
Conversations with my body in the first trimester of pregnancy
-
1. Body/morning sickness: Hey.
Katie: Oh, no.
B: HEY! Heeeyyyy, are we at Stake Conference? (a church meeting- this was
at a Saturday evening session)
...
1 year ago
i asked dun last night, "why Iowa?"
ReplyDeletei will admit it's kind of interesting to see who is getting what votes and winning what states before the actual election, especially because we've gotten to know ALL the canidates better this year than any i can remember.
But i totally agree with you, Sean...
not only do they have me asking, "why Iowa?" i'm also wondering, "now what?" and begining to think that it can't be chalked up to anything more than tradition. Their grandfather's grandfather's grandfather did this and thought it was absolutely vital to democratic society. So it must be!
Notice that other than Edwards, no one is willing to prevent this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/01/04/iraq-blogger-major-andrew-olmsted-killed-in-ambush/
Although he asks us to not politicize his death, everyone should think seriously about him when they vote in the primary and general elections.
The reason that we "insult democracy" and have an electoral college is because the founders didn't trust your average Joe to be smart enough to elect someone who will be good as president (something like unto great Britain, where the prime minister is actually chosen by parliament rather than the people.) Also, the party thing was never really intended, and I really think we would be better off with out the two party system anyhow.... but so long as we seem to be stuck with two parties, we'll have to have multiple elections one way or the other... if all states had their primaries on the same date, you would likely have 3 people tie for top republican/democratic candidate rather than just one- so you would still have to have runoff elections. The current way, the primaries act as that runoff- as people continually decide that they are not doing so hot at the primaries, they decide to drop out of the race, and we dribble it down to just one for each.
ReplyDeleteThe best solution to all of this, of course, would be to read books instead of watching television, so that your nightly entertainment is never interrupted by annoying political ads.
Yes,but the problem with books are that they were published with old information. TV provides up to the date information. And it involves less participation.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to hear you slam the caucuses because, as a Midwesterner, i consider the caucus to be the definition of democracy. People get together in community centers, sometimes even neighbors in people's private homes, and talk about why they like their candidate. i know that it is hard to believe that anyone really cares about candidates anymore and that we would all like to think that most of America is completely content to let CNN tell them who we should vote for, but here in the Midwest we care about what our neighbors and local party reps think.
ReplyDeletePrimaries exist as the only way to get candidates into states and to be forced to learn about local issues. National debates are important, but more likely than not, an individual state has cooked up a solution that no one else is using for things like healthcare. If a candidate doesn't show up to get our primary vote they might not know we, and our ideas, exist.
if it is a fiction book, it doesn't matter how up to date the information is. :D
ReplyDeleteAnd the info the TV gives is rather mindless up-to-date information. You can get all kinds of up-to-date information that is much less brainless without having to watch TV to get it. ;)
here here! i'm fine with having the debates, but really, we only need like, ONE to know where they stand on the issues. i'm even fine with primary's but we dont need to see them all, just so long as we know who is left in about august, so that we can research them enough to vote come november. i will agree though that we shouldnt need the electoral college, and that it should just be whoever gets the most votes wins. especially with how technology has advanced that they could tally them up really easily.
ReplyDeletei will agree though, that the information the TV gives is mind-less information. :)