Analyzing the Chinese Fire Drill

By the time this writing is published, one of the more contentious mid-term elections in some time will have already taken place, the votes will have been counted, and those obnoxious talking heads (who never seem to stop talking) will be at it again, trying to analyze the results, and, in many cases, trying to put a positive spin on them, so as to have it appear that their side was the one that really came out on top.

And the results will determine whether the Congress continues its role as the President’s rubber stamp, or whether Mr. Bush will have to deal with a Congress controlled by the opposition party, as his predecessor did for six years of his Presidency,. And it would remain to be seen, if this does turn out to be the case, how well President Bush can deal with the opposing party, when it is more than the voiceless minority it has been for quite some time.

There is an old saying that there is always more than one way to skin a cat, and, seeing how hamstrung a lame-duck president can be, and how his status as a lame duck usually hamstrings the day-to-day workings of government as well, I sometimes wonder if, perhaps, parliamentarian government might not be a superior way to skin this particular cat. It has been obvious for some time now that the majority of the American public no longer support the Bush/neo-con Iraqi war policies, and if we were, say, in Great Britain, we might have already had early elections, which would have led to a head of government more in line with public opinion. Of course, another, and perhaps, more acceptable way of handling the lame-duck issue would be to simply limit the President to a single six-year term, thus ending the idea of a second term, and the lame-duck status that goes with it.

Something else that should be done with the political process in this country is to insist on term-limits for Members of the U. S House and Senate. Too many times, Members of Congress see themselves as a privileged class, and, just as often, begin to ignore their real constituency for the ones with the deep pockets who can finance their need to stay in power. Three two-year terms for a Member of the House, and a single six-year term for a Senator would be plenty. If this were coupled with a complete ban on campaign contributions of any kind, you might see real democracy returned to this country.

How would you get your message to the voter? Quite simple. Allot each candidate ample time on public television, so that each could articulate his or her approach to the issues at hand, and replay them as often as needed so that all voters could become acquainted with the candidate.

There are those who would object to such an approach, and argue that to deny special interest groups the right to support candidates of their choice monetarily is to deny them their freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, but I see this in another light. The way things are done now, that is, where candidates court those who have deep pockets, and use their resources to obtain their seats of power, the only ones who have any rights at all are these power brokers. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out why high-powered corporate types pump millions of dollars into any politician’s coffer. They do so to assure that, when the time comes (and it will come), they’ll be assured of having friends in high places.

Another benefit of elections bereft of the corrupting influence of campaign money might be that once elected to office, Members of Congress, free of the need to raise re-election cash, might actually be able to turn their attention to getting some real work done, and all without the big-time contributors whispering in their ears.

And, as is the case with almost all of our elections, we will be wondering why so few chose to cast a ballot. Again, there will be many who disagree, but, in my humble opinion, one thing that suppresses voter turnout is the fact that the two major political parties have enacted laws that benefit them to the point where it is virtually impossible to get elected to office without the official support of one of the two.

Everything is set up to benefit these groups, whose existence is not even mentioned in the Constitution. Take the idea of voting in the primary in any closed-primary state, like Kentucky. If you are not a registered Democrat or Republican, you are disenfranchised. You cannot vote. And there are many independent voters who can vote in only one election a year. And this is simply not right.

As far as that is concerned, why should anyone need to know your party affiliation before you can vote? Again, all this does is offer a benefit to the two major political parties. Limit the number of voters in the primary, and you don’t have so many voters to convince, or to delude. I would like to see our state enact a law that does away with the need for a voter to do anything but show proof of in-state residency, and proof that they live in the precinct that they show on the voter registration card. In other words, ours would really be an open-primary state. Let the voter simply register, and let the candidates find out who is what. The voter could then decide for him- or herself, in which party’s primary they’d like to vote.

The results might be that primary elections, in which the minority party doesn’t even offer an opposition candidate, would be a thing of the past. If both parties could offer a full and competing slate of candidates in the primary, we might get more and better candidates from which to choose, and as a result, better and more responsive government, being elected by greater and greater numbers of voters.

Sadly, there is as much of a chance of this idea taking root as there is of seeing a car built which would run on water. In the words of a Mad Magazine writer, sure, you’re a genius if you can build one, but you’re an idiot if you think the oil companies will let you.