My idea to revamp political campaigns

[Texsox]

Incumbents will not be allowed to campaign beyond stating their accomplishments in office and debate their opponent. You just had time in office, tell me what the hell you did, not what you think you can do next time.

[EvilMonkey]

Limit the window where they can run political ads and form 'exploratory committees' to raise money. I don't want to see another 2+ year campaign. Ever.

[Balta1701]

Limit the window where they can run political ads and form 'exploratory committees' to raise money. I don't want to see another 2+ year campaign. Ever.

The Palin/Huckabee/Romney matchup starts next Wednesday.

[bmags]

Limit the window where they can run political ads and form 'exploratory committees' to raise money. I don't want to see another 2+ year campaign. Ever.

 

I'm torn on this. I think that long primaries give you a very good idea about who a candidate was. I think that's why McCain has had such a hard time on Obama. People had mostly made up their mind about he he was after he beat hillary, and he couldn't rehash, he couldn't re-frame. Now why I say this is good is not because I'm an Obama fan. But if both candidates had an extended, hard-battled primary where the candidates had to define who they were to their party, then when they face off for the GE, it wouldn't be an election on personalities. It becomes about two distinct sets of ideologies.

 

My father before this primary said he was dismayed that now with primaries it all comes down to IA and NH, and people don't really get to understand the candidates, and then it goes to a battle of vague ideologies b/w parties and the discourse goes down. In that sense, I think the Clinton/Obama fight was incredibly interesting from a historical perspective, and I hope next election cycle gets two strong candidates for the Republicans, b/c that whole crap about it fracturing the party was just that, crap.

[Balta1701]

Reforms I'd like to see.

 

1. Fully public financing. Of everything. With enough money that we don't need lobbyists.

 

Distantly:

2. Reorganize the primary calendars to have closer to regional or national primary days. No reason at all for Iowa and New Hampshire to achieve that level of importance every single time. Vary the opening states or have much larger blocks happen, where there are 3 or 4 days of primaries with adequate spacing in-between and that's it. And no more weird 6 week gaps like we had before PA, that was just excruciating.

3. I think I agree wtih Alpha, those exploratory committees are just silly.

[mr_genius]

Reforms I'd like to see.

 

1. Fully public financing. Of everything. With enough money that we don't need lobbyists.

 

Distantly:

2. Reorganize the primary calendars to have closer to regional or national primary days. No reason at all for Iowa and New Hampshire to achieve that level of importance every single time. Vary the opening states or have much larger blocks happen, where there are 3 or 4 days of primaries with adequate spacing in-between and that's it. And no more weird 6 week gaps like we had before PA, that was just excruciating.

3. I think I agree wtih Alpha, those exploratory committees are just silly.

 

public financing is dead. Obama has made sure of that. unless you want to give each candidate over a billion each, no one is going to take the public financing when they know their opponent can out spend them by a large margin.

[Balta1701]

public financing is dead. Obama has made sure of that. unless you want to give each candidate over a billion each, no one is going to take the public financing when they know their opponent can out spend them by a large margin.

Compared to the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars we waste on things that lobbyists ask for, that's still cheap.

[mreye]

The Palin/Huckabee/Romney/Lindsey Graham matchup starts next Wednesday.

 

Fixed

 

[southsider2k5]

Incumbents will not be allowed to campaign beyond stating their accomplishments in office and debate their opponent. You just had time in office, tell me what the hell you did, not what you think you can do next time.

 

You are in favor of eliminating the first amendment for some?

[NorthSideSox72]

Fixed

I think Jindal may be in there too, and possibly Chuck Hagel.

[Texsox]

You are in favor of eliminating the first amendment for some?

 

yeah pretty much. Sad isn't it. Which is why I know I can suggest this and not have it happen I'm sick of watching political campaigns with a new wave of promises and they didn't deliver on their last ones. I'm tired of politicians needing to start running for reelection 6 months after they win the last election. I'm especially thinking I don't want Presidents running for office for 30 months of a 48 month term.

[BigSqwert]

Anyone in favor of a 6 year term for President?

[southsider2k5]

yeah pretty much. Sad isn't it. Which is why I know I can suggest this and not have it happen I'm sick of watching political campaigns with a new wave of promises and they didn't deliver on their last ones. I'm tired of politicians needing to start running for reelection 6 months after they win the last election. I'm especially thinking I don't want Presidents running for office for 30 months of a 48 month term.

 

I think we are all sick of it, especially with as nasty and bitter as all of the candidates have been in this cycle, even more so in the last couple of months.

[Texsox]

Anyone in favor of a 6 year term for President?

 

It's the only elected position I favor a term limit. But basically because I don't like sitting Presidents running for reelection.

[mr_genius]

Anyone in favor of a 6 year term for President?

 

no

[Balta1701]

Here is an idea I'd like to completely endorse.

When it comes to charges of "voter fraud" and "vote suppression," each election is worse than the last. This year, John McCain has claimed that some fraudulent voter registration cards turned in by ACORN employees threatened the "fabric of democracy." The Obama campaign has sent letters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey accusing Republicans of deliberately trying to suppress the vote. And the Ohio Republican Party is battling the Ohio secretary of state—in litigation that's already made it to the Supreme Court—over mismatches between voter registration and motor-vehicle-department databases. Now House Minority Leader John Boehner wants the Department of Justice to get involved to stop voter fraud. That went so well last time, so why not?

.....

 

The solution is to take the job of voter registration for federal elections out of the hands of third parties (and out of the hands of the counties and states) and give it to the federal government. The Constitution grants Congress wide authority over congressional elections. The next president should propose legislation to have the Census Bureau, when it conducts the 2010 census, also register all eligible voters who wish to be registered for future federal elections. High-school seniors could be signed up as well so that they would be registered to vote on their 18th birthday. When people submit change-of-address cards to the post office, election officials would also change their registration information.

 

This change would eliminate most voter registration fraud. Government employees would not have an incentive to pad registration lists with additional people in order to keep their jobs. The system would also eliminate the need for matches between state databases, a problem that has proved so troublesome because of the bad quality of the data. The federal government could assign each person a unique voter-identification number, which would remain the same regardless of where the voter moves. The unique ID would prevent people from voting in two jurisdictions, such as snowbirds who might be tempted to vote in Florida and New York. States would not have to use the system for their state and local elections, but most would choose to do so because of the cost savings.

 

There's something in this for both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats talk about wanting to expand the franchise, and there's no better way to do it than the way most mature democracies do it: by having the government register voters. For Republicans serious about ballot integrity, this should be a winner as well. No more ACORN registration drives, and no more concerns about Democratic secretaries of state not aggressively matching voters enough to motor vehicle databases.

A federally managed election registration system makes sense to me, seems completely weird to have each state having different rules about who is registered, who is eligible to vote, and how you go about getting that way.

[Rex Kickass]

Here is an idea I'd like to completely endorse.

A federally managed election registration system makes sense to me, seems completely weird to have each state having different rules about who is registered, who is eligible to vote, and how you go about getting that way.

 

A federally managed election registration is anti-federalist and should not happen. Our government consists of 50 separate states, not 50 provinces of a greater country. Each state deserves the ability to push forward its elections in a manner they see fit, providing it agrees with the US Constitution.

[Balta1701]

Why is just saying something is "Federalist" still a reasonable counterpoint? I really don't care how federalist the system is, right now the only ones who benefit from our current setup are the people who make money off of registrations and the people who benefit from stopping folks from voting.

[Rex Kickass]

Why is just saying something is "Federalist" still a reasonable counterpoint? I really don't care how federalist the system is, right now the only ones who benefit from our current setup are the people who make money off of registrations and the people who benefit from stopping folks from voting.

 

To make a national election, the way that you are advocating, would require a constitutional amendment.

[farmteam]

A federally managed election registration is anti-federalist and should not happen. Our government consists of 50 separate states, not 50 provinces of a greater country. Each state deserves the ability to push forward its elections in a manner they see fit, providing it agrees with the US Constitution.

 

Wait, what? Maybe I'm forgetting the U.S. History I learned in high school, but Federalism is a strong centralized government, so if we were giving more power to the federal government, how would that be anti-federalist?

[NorthSideSox72]

Wait, what? Maybe I'm forgetting the U.S. History I learned in high school, but Federalism is a strong centralized government, so if we were giving more power to the federal government, how would that be anti-federalist?

No, federalism is a strong adherence to the concept of a federal model - which is to say, strong individual states with a relatively weak central government. Its a federation of states.

 

I actually took a college class called "Federalism and Federation".

 

[southsider2k5]

Why is just saying something is "Federalist" still a reasonable counterpoint? I really don't care how federalist the system is, right now the only ones who benefit from our current setup are the people who make money off of registrations and the people who benefit from stopping folks from voting.

 

Because constitutionally a state could have monkey's throw darts at cows to pick who they were going to give their votes to, and it would be more constitutionally sound than stripping the power from that state to decide how it wants to pick who it votes for as a whole. That is the biggest reason I have had a problem with all of the changes to all of the primary and general election processes over the past few years. It is up to the states to decide how they want to deliver their electoral votes, and not the federal government. It is also up to the specific parties under their freedom of speech to decide how they want to pick their candidates. Anything else is the federal government usurping the rights of the people.

[Texsox]

Why is just saying something is "Federalist" still a reasonable counterpoint? I really don't care how federalist the system is, right now the only ones who benefit from our current setup are the people who make money off of registrations and the people who benefit from stopping folks from voting.

 

I believe I agree with your over all theme, and I agree quite a bit with SS response. If your theme is "why do we have to stay anchored to the Constitution, etc. I agree. I think after 225 years, we probably have some room to improve over what the framers had in mind. They could not imagine someone in Philadelphia speaking instantly with someone in New York.

 

I agree with SS specific, I favor states handling this. I like to idea of United States.

[lostfan]

yeah pretty much. Sad isn't it. Which is why I know I can suggest this and not have it happen I'm sick of watching political campaigns with a new wave of promises and they didn't deliver on their last ones. I'm tired of politicians needing to start running for reelection 6 months after they win the last election. I'm especially thinking I don't want Presidents running for office for 30 months of a 48 month term.

There's reasons for this. In a nutshell, the public as a body is dumb. You have to pander to the lowest common denominator which is a pretty big chunk of the electorate. It's not ideal, but you need to get elected before you do anything. To do that you have to BS to some degree. There's no way around it.

[BigSqwert]

That's why the Kucinichs and Naders of the world never become President.