Thursday, April 17, 2008
CREATING NEW RULES FOR THE 2012 ELECTIONS
It is time to begin considering needed changes in the rules for the 2012 elections. Such problems as the length of the campaigning, the media bias, the type of debates, the tremendous amount of money that has been involved, etc. has led to GREAT dissatisfaction this year. I'm assuming that the parties can establish these needed changes, so I am suggesting that (1) all State primaries to select their party candidate be at the same time, and only several months before the general election when the president is selected.. (The general election can be run the same way as specified in the Constitution; thus requiring no major action by the government.) Financing the election has long been recognized as a major problem, and needs much change; and change which would include a way for money to come from ALL citizens. Presidents should be responsible to all of us, and not just those with inordinate amounts of money. (Big business) I'm not smart enough to think about solutions for this! I would appreciate your comments, and also hearing the suggestions you have been considering. It's a fine day here, a good one for fun. I hope you also have some! Marian
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I think most of us see the system as a mess and such a mess that there are no simple solutions no matter how badly we want a simple solution. The political parties say that an all at one time primary won't work because so few could afford to engage in a nationwide primary and inexpensive primaries and caucuses give people a chance to try out and see what happens. There have been suggestions for regional primaries. Somehow, I am not confident that the national parties will change as they can't seem to control there state affiliates i.e. Florida and Michigan.
There certainly is a need for a change in funding but the courts seem to think money is speech and covered by the first amendment. It seems to me that more public financing is needed and some way to counter the affect of the 527s that spring up to support or denigrate candidates. Obama is claiming that his internet based fund raising is a possible answer hundreds of thousands giving small amount. Maybe so.
It seems that there should be a way to shorten the process but then what about the candidate that needs time to meet the American people. An example might be Jimmy Carter who it seemed to me told people he was running when most of us thought how could a peanut farmer be elected.
If we could all study and work on the problem maybe we could come to a consensus and right now it doesn't seem like we could make it worse, but I suspect we could.
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