With a few notable exceptions, I have always voted for Democrats. This is not out of partisanship, but because I have always believed that Democrats are more in touch with the common man, more focused on the needs of our communities, and have better ideas about how to achieve a better society. In some ways, I have become more conservative as I have grown older (economic policy, government spending, immigration, abortion (more on this another time), but I have also become more firmly opposed to what the Republican party has become...erratic, inconsistent, and unrealistic. The Democratic party has it's own issues but mainly Democrats need to be or become principled, disciplined, and decisive. So here is the beginning of my take on American politics:
We need fewer career politicians. Real people need to be willing to step out of their professional lives in order to give a few years of service to the governance of our nation. Considering the cost of running for office and the ever-increasing duration of the campaign calendar, no ordinary citizen can run without submitting to the expectations of the party under which they run. And noone but the rich, powerful, and entrenched can afford to dedicate the necessary time to being a candidate for public office.
My suggestion would be campaign and election reform. Like the current college football bowl championship system, our elections are convoluted almost beyond recognition. The people with the power to decide the Presidential campaign process (and the BCS) would be like a building contractor deciding to build a tower with it's foundation perpendicular to a hillside. It's a bad idea, it won't work right, but being determined to make it be right, the contractor orders braces and reinforcements to be added and the building to continue. It's ridiculous and everybody knows it, but nobody knows how to bring sanity to the process.
At the Federal level, our elections process needs to be reeled in considerably, both in terms of the amount of time and money spent, and in the selection and voting processes. Candidates should receive equal air time and equal public funds early in the campaign calendar. Perhaps at some stage in the process, restrictions on private contributions could be relieved, but not until the candidates have had the opportunity to state their positions. Financial support should not be the only criteria for a candidate's viability. The campaign calendar should be condensed while still giving candidates ample opportunity to debate and campaign prior to the primary or general elections.
In terms of election reforms, I assert that no election results should be announced until well after all polling is completed. Exit polling should remain confidential as well. If we must have dramatic televised election coverage and expert analysis, just start the counting process the day after the election and let each State announce their totals throughout the day and evening. The mystery would remain, but the integrity of the election would be enhanced. It needs to be illegal to release election results until after every ballot has been cast. This pause in information dissemination would allow for places with voting irregularities to be sorted out before announcing the results, and in places where voting supplies run short or where lines run long, all votes would be included. I am not opposed to some sort of voter identification requirements...I thought that was already the case, but this issue has been raised for the sole purpose of disenfranchising a block of voters who will not be inclined to vote for Republicans.
I am in favor of State's rights, but for Federal elections, all states should agree to conduct elections using the same voting system, the same vote-tallying system, and the whole process should be equally transparent everywhere. We are The United States of America, the greatest nation on earth! This should not be an impossible task.
The Republicans have a sorry group of candidates to choose from. That's not a secret, but the Democrats field has been thinned out by the media and that is a shame. Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson are all qualified and viable candidates. John Edwards is doing everything in his power to garner attention and the fact that he has stayed in it this long in spite of the lack of media attention almost inspires me to support him. And then there's Dennis Kucinich. That guy has been portrayed as downright crazy or clownish by the media and that is really unfair. He's honest and straightforward. If he wasn't odd-looking, or if he was a little bit dishonest ("No, I didn't see anything in the sky. If I did it was probably an airplane"), people might like some of his policy logic. That's enough about him. The truth is, even if his policies were pure genius that a baby could understand, he wouldn't be electable because Americans want someone who looks like a president.
I'm not sure who the best candidate would have been policy-wise or future-accomplishment-wise, but of the three left standing I like Obama or Edwards. I like Richardson, Dodd, and Biden in any role they are willing to accept. I don't think Hillary should be the first female president because I don't think she should be president. Another woman would be fine. But she cannot heal the nation and she cannot bring people together. I just don't see it in her.
So, to sum up my first effort at blogging; our government needs and the elections process needs to be rescued by real citizens getting involved and pressure on our politicians and the media to report but not create the news. The Republican party is a mess (I forgot to mention that we also need them to get their principles back in order to make this representative government thing work), and the next President should be one of the three Democrats, and this writer will decide between Obama and Edwards in due time.
Next time, I will focus on sports and whatever else is happening.
