Popularity Contest

The Presidential election for 2012 is 18 months away and the campaigning has already started. We are already hearing who has the most electablility, not who is the most qualified, or who will be the best one for America, but who is the most electable. The mainstream media is not talking about who has the right ideas about what is best for America or who has the record to back it up, they are talking about who has the best hair, the best tan and is the best orator.

The RNC and the DNC are not concerned with who will do the right things for America; they are concerned with who can get elected and keep them in power, in power to continue the agenda. The problem is that the agenda of the RNC and the DNC may look different from the outside but in truth they are the same. Both parties only want more Government and more power.

Unfortunately the American People are caught up in the parties, even when they have no idea of what their party is doing, all they know is that they are a registered Democrat or Republican and that is how they are going to vote. You can’t be upset with the People, there are so many things going on in the average persons life that make an election just another event on the 6:00 news. With the hustle and bustle of the typical American life picking a President is easier if it’s done American Idol style.

Since Donald Trump has officially dropped out of the Presidential race we can have him pitch it as “So You Think You Can Be President”. It can start November of the year prior to election year with one show a week. The first 6 weeks can be all the challengers. Each week will be a different discussion with each participant having 3 minutes to state their case. To keep things interesting the judges should be from the talk show arena, both TV and Radio, people like Rush Limbaugh, Mike Church, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Glenn Beck, Chris Matthews and others. It needs to be fair so there should be a couple from all sides, right, left, centrist, liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian and of course pro-constitution. Of course the people will vote each week for who they like the best each week. The judges would have the option of saving an individual but they would have to give their best campaign speech to see if they continue. Just to keep it going no one will be cut for the first 3 months, let everyone have a chance at getting to the finals. The voting will determine their poll standings, just to give the mainstream media something to talk about. After that, one candidate a week will be cut, until we are down to at least one candidate for the last 6 months to go head to head with the incumbent. In a year where the incumbent won’t be running we can have 2 shows going at once, maybe three. One for each of the major parties, Republican and Democrat, and one for the others, the independents, libertarians, green party and who ever else feels lucky.

The last 6 months will be only the finalists for each show, so we could be looking at possibly 3 candidates. This is where the incumbent President, if running, will have to clear his schedule for every Tuesday night. With today’s technology that shouldn’t be a problem, he or she can just do their part from the oval office, or the west wing using Go to meeting.com or Skype. At the end of the second 6 months the American public will phone it their vote for the next President of the United States. If this works out well we can always look at doing the same thing locally in each state for Senators. Of course part of the process will be voting on how well they chose their running mates, how well they tell us how they are going to take care of us from cradle to grave, how well they explain the importance of spreading American democracy across the globe, and how all our entitlement programs are just fine, even though we have fewer and fewer taxpayers each year.

The beauty of this plan is that we can now charge say a dollar for each phone call and call it campaign contributions, not votes. The candidate with the most campaign contributions is the winner for that week, but, the money that is raised will go for paying for the show of course, but whatever is left will go to paying our national debt. Of course this will be limited to calls from within the United States only and something will have to be worked out so that each person of voting age can only call once a week, but hey, if we can track a cow from birth to supermarket I’m sure that can be figured out. This will also cut out campaign contributions from corporations and unions, which I’m sure many will feel is not fair. I know there was a landmark ruling in Virginia recently that stated corporations had the same freedom of speech as individuals when it came to campaign contributions, but how much sense does that make? The CEO of a corporation or the head of a Union may not have the same political attitude as the people that work for that corporation or that are members of that union, but they can use the employees hard work or the union members dues to contribute to political candidates they like? This plan leaves it in the hands of the citizens alone, and putting it on prime time will increase the voting block probably 10 fold, look at the results American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance have had.

Will it matter that we will be electing someone based on charisma, good looks, oratory skills, or how well they can relate to foreign diplomats? Probably not, from the state of things in America now it appears that no one is paying attention to the down hill slide America and our way of life are currently on. At least this way we can cash in a little to pay down the unwieldy debt past and present Presidents and Congress’s have given us while having a little entertainment thrown in.

Steve Avery
5/30/11