I have been voting in presidential elections since 1968 (I have been alert and aware of presidential elections since 1952). I’m happy to share my vast background and expertise to help our great nation find a quicker, better way to elect our presidents. At no charge. (Please, please, no applause.) Here goes:
1. Make the job of president no more prestigious than that of a competent office manager. Constitutionally, the president is our chief executive officer — not a rich, fat-cat CEO like we all love in America, but like a competent manager. If we were to cut out the idiocy of treating the president as a cross between the pope and a king, we’d do well. Even our first president, George Washington, rejected the title “His Excellency.” If that was good enough for George Washington, it ought to be good enough for the pipsqueaks we elect these days.
2. Cut back all the perks and benefits of president — both those prescribed while he’s in office and those he looks forward to after the presidency. We already give the president some handsome benefits, free housing and food, and a salary for competent business managers. What the heck, we even let him fly around the world at a cost of millions of dollars on our dime.
3. Elect as president only people who have worked 1) as governors, or, 2) as file clerks. Governors understand a little bit about working for the people and, well, governing. File clerks know a lot about organization and where to find important information. Both are admirable characteristics all presidents should have.
4. Eliminate most campaign funding. Let people who know the candidates help them out. Establish a presidential campaign fund that isn’t a joke and levels the playing field. Get rid of this god-awful, moronic, EVIL notion that limiting campaign contributions is limiting Constitutionally protected freedom of speech. What a joke, the lobbiests who pulled off that slight-of-hand and convinced judges to go for it. HAH! The plain truth about that fable is this: “I have more money by millions than you, so I have more freedom of speech than you.” Do we really want our country run by such “logic”? Apparently we do.
5. Limit the presidential campaigns from their current 4-8 years in duration to about 10 months, give or take. Starting January 1 of an election year, let those running for president kick off their campaigns. Anyone who campaigns before is to be publicly humiliated and booted from the race. (Yeah, I know. It’s impossible to publicly humiliate a serious politician. That’s like shaming a car salesman or stopping an insurance salesman.) The idea that any sane voters (maybe that’s an oxymoron) actually need YEARS of candidates pandering and babbling to make an informed decision simply demonstrates the scarcity of sane voters.
6. Following a presidential election, require the winner to apologize publicly in advance to the American people for the lies, inconveniences, mistakes, and hardships he’s going to make, then make him vow not to run for a second term, under penalty of deportation to any Third World country of his choice.
Okay, maybe I’m a little overboard with that last one. My biggest problem with our current presidential circus is not really the system or the people running — it’s with all of US, the idiots who forget our entire history of past presidents and past elections and continue to tolerate this system election after election — sort of hoping against all reason that we can do the same thing every four years but we’ll see different results THIS time.
Hey, maybe if I had the money to afford it after being so slammed and financially drained by the Bush presidency, I’d up and emigrate to Canada. Not a bad idea. And NOT a Third World country.
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