Political babbling

Well with primary season under way and election day coming up on November 2, 2010 I feel I should discuss my political picks and why. In fact I see politics as sports competition anymore. I sometimes wonder why we vote for people that go out and spend millions of dollars on advertising themselves. With the money that these politicians spend on advertisement I'm pretty sure if all that money went into paying off the national debt the debt would be a lot less than it is right now. Also does it make sense to spend $250 million on a job that pays only $400,000. I think these people have to be idiots. However I don't necessarily feel the candidates are idiots themselves, I feel our system is idiotic. If anything every candidate should be given the opportunity to speak at debates, but due to how our debates flow today you see the media ask softball questions to their favorites.But the money having to be spent too be president is absurd. We need campaign reform that should limit spending to no more than 3 to 4 times what the projected salary would be. So instead of spending $250 million the campaign reform would place a 1.2 to 1.6 million cap on spending meaning that candidates would have to use public means to get their message across. They could use public radio and television to express their views.

My other complaint is primary season is way too long for the President race. I mean we have such a long drawn out process where candidates are pseudo-campaigning for two years. I dislike the fact hearing about who will run for president two years from now. We should adopt the British campaign system where they are given maybe a month before the election to campaign. So now that most serious contestants would be at the same level with same money same amount of time to campaign and with the public sources of information given fair amounts of time to each candidate it would be about the issues. Not that Barrack Obama has twenty thousand billboards and tv commercials saying vote for him, it would be about what he would do for the country.

Also debates should welcome all contenders that will be on the ballot for the the general election and not your republican and democrat only. The Green and Libertarian parties both have been doing impressively in being listed on almost every states ballot. Any candidate that is on the ballot in 2/3 of the states ought to be invited to the Presidential debates. Then the nation would finally get to see the different view points. Also instead of a two hour debate or one hour debate I'm talking about having the candidates debate until all the questions are answered. Also during rebuttals I don't want the moderator cutting the candidate off every 5  seconds let them express why their opponent(s) view(s) on an issue are wrong. Instead we have the moderator rush candidates through the debate so they can make their allotted time. Politics should be serious but we take and make it a joke.

Moving onto Congressional and Senatorial campaigns again the money that's required to be raised even for a seat in the House of Representatives is getting ridiculous up to 3-6 million to compete. This position makes $160,000 a year so I can see maybe spending twice that at the most. For 1 the job of house of representative is meant as a short term job that's why there's a two year term, but what happens is an incumbent gets so much support from special interests that it's impossible for an opponent to compete.  I am all out in favor of two consecutive terms for both congressman and senators, meaning they can serve more than two terms, but they need a break after two consecutive terms. The problem and where our corruption is, is not with the President. The House and and Senate are more prone to corruption because they seek reelection after re-election. So let's add that stipulation onto the Senators and Congress and we could see corruption drop a little.  However by limiting spending we place the incumbent down to the same playing field as their opponent. Again debates should be held on local news affiliates so we can see how the candidates match up. How many people know what their congressman/woman's views are on issues?. I'd say most people don't.   I'll even go on a limb and say most people don't know who their representatives and senators are.

Those are just some reforms I would make to the system. I feel it would create more competitive elections and give us a more educated electorate who are not just out there voting for their party line. Also people need to actually vote.  America has such a low turnout at the polls no wonder the country has gone to hell and has become an elitist jungle. If we get to 55% of registered voters we're lucky and for midterms that number is closer to 22%. So that means not even half the country is trying to vote or voting and this isn't counting those that aren't registered to vote. I don't want people to think I'm racist but want to know who don't register to vote.... Black people. For all the struggles they went at to gain the right to vote they have a problem registering to vote or if they are registered showing up at the polls. They went and marched in the streets wanting that right to vote, but honestly they rarely cause an impact on the outcome. Now they did come out in full force to vote for OBama, but did they vote for right reasons or because he's black.Now from what I was hearing around the college campus some of the black people I knew were being quite racist in that it's now our time to stick it to the man. As in that Obama was gonna automatically make living better for blacks. Others did have the valid points that they agreed with his politics. But it seemed the majority came voted for him because he's black. I now wonder if the Republicans decided to replace McCain with Palin would that have created a movement among women voters to come and vote for Palin. Then again with as progressive as women have become would they go for a conservative female? Is it even possible to be female and conservative anymore?  Our new norm in society would tell you that's an oxymoron since women want all equality and all rights men have. I bet if it was possible they'd also want a penis too. (Not trying to be sexist or anything just trying to get the point of equality out there). So I'm not sure if it is as polarizing as a black person running for the office. Obama did spend more than any candidate in history though almost outspending McCain 3 to 1 or possibly 5 to 1 depending on what numbers you look at. 

Well I needed something to put in this blog today since authoring my novel has been a bit slow today. I feel I'm gonna have a break out day writing soon. Guess I need to provide some entertainment while I'm doing the bear minimum of one page. Well these political babblings have been brought to you by our sponsors.