crazy ranting ...
May. 29th, 2006 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oI am SO tired of reading that more votes were cast for American Idol than in the last presidential election.
First of all: people can cast multiple votes for AI, so it's apples and oranges.
But second: Imagine if the presidential elections were handled like American Idol -- if every week, all the candidates, from whichever party, appeared on live TV and had five minutes to argue their position on a specific issue.
There'd be brief comments from the judges to put things in perspective (who would make good permanent judges ... Jesse Jackson, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, John McCain, and Jesse Ventura?). Plus each week there could be a pair of guest judges tailored to the specific issue (president of Planned Parenthood and some anti-abortion someone; commandant of the Marine Corps and Cindy Sheehan; someone from EarthFirst and, I don't know, the CEO of Amoco?; the head of the Teamsters union and the head of GM; etc.).
At the end of each debate, Americans would vote by phone (each social security number held by someone 18 or over could cast one vote), and the candidate who received the fewest votes would be eliminated.
This could go on for, what, eight weeks? 12? And then at the end, the Last One Standing would be president. I guarantee you, voter turnout would go through the *roof*. I have no idea who would be elected, but I'd be a lot happier with the process than I am with the one we have now. Is there the potential for corruption? Of course. But the current system offers the potential of corruption and doesn't come anywhere close to being as inclusive as this would be.
Man, the more I think about this, the more I like it.
ETA: I am only now catching up on reading Sunday's Washington Post, and it turns out a professor in the UC system, Ethan J. Leib, proposed almost exactly the same thing in the Outlook section. So first, not that you were wondering, but I didn't plagiarize from him. And second, there are actual legit people proposing these things -- I have hope for the system yet.
First of all: people can cast multiple votes for AI, so it's apples and oranges.
But second: Imagine if the presidential elections were handled like American Idol -- if every week, all the candidates, from whichever party, appeared on live TV and had five minutes to argue their position on a specific issue.
There'd be brief comments from the judges to put things in perspective (who would make good permanent judges ... Jesse Jackson, Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, John McCain, and Jesse Ventura?). Plus each week there could be a pair of guest judges tailored to the specific issue (president of Planned Parenthood and some anti-abortion someone; commandant of the Marine Corps and Cindy Sheehan; someone from EarthFirst and, I don't know, the CEO of Amoco?; the head of the Teamsters union and the head of GM; etc.).
At the end of each debate, Americans would vote by phone (each social security number held by someone 18 or over could cast one vote), and the candidate who received the fewest votes would be eliminated.
This could go on for, what, eight weeks? 12? And then at the end, the Last One Standing would be president. I guarantee you, voter turnout would go through the *roof*. I have no idea who would be elected, but I'd be a lot happier with the process than I am with the one we have now. Is there the potential for corruption? Of course. But the current system offers the potential of corruption and doesn't come anywhere close to being as inclusive as this would be.
Man, the more I think about this, the more I like it.
ETA: I am only now catching up on reading Sunday's Washington Post, and it turns out a professor in the UC system, Ethan J. Leib, proposed almost exactly the same thing in the Outlook section. So first, not that you were wondering, but I didn't plagiarize from him. And second, there are actual legit people proposing these things -- I have hope for the system yet.