Politics for the people

Although I'm a bit late to the party, I just wanted to mention that yesterday there was a huge Obama rally (link quotes sign as saying "We Need Change."  It actually read "Change We Need") on Johnson Field on the University of New Mexico campus.  By huge I mean 45,000 to 80,000 people huge.  That's almost a sixth of Albuquerque right there - an amazing feat for any event (Apparently this was the largest political rally ever in New Mexico, according to KOB-TV).

I was at the Obama rally as a volunteer, one of about 500 registering people to volunteer, assisting with the event, and generally doing anything we were told.  What struck me about the Obama campaign was its amazing organization and the way everything ran so smoothly with only a few days notice and preparation.

I am incredibly proud of this movement because this is truly a "grassroots" campaign.  We had volunteers of every age, every ethnicity, and just about every income level out there, working together for something they all believed in.  The raw energy of it was astounding.

I think that this campaign, if it successful, will do something more than simply "bring change to Washington;" I hope that this campaign will change the way campaigns are run.  We have the opportunity here to move away from a negative, top-down approach to political campaigns, and move towards positive, engaging, volunteer-supported, volunteer-driven, bottom-up campaigns that include everyone, not just "VIPs" or the party elite.  For too many years politics has been the domain of a privileged few.  Even the jargon of politics served to exclude people from the process.  Now, though, we can go back to the roots of mass democracy, something envisioned by James Madison way back at the founding of the United States.  

No one believed Madison that democratic-republicanism could be practiced with a large group of people over a large territory.  We can now, once and for ever, prove that Madison was right; we can practice real democracy, democracy where the most important thing is a single person with a single vote.  I'm not saying that party organization doesn't have its place, I'm saying that campaigns and parties should derive their powers from the same source that the government derives its powers: the people.

I realize this sounds as if I'm saying "go out and vote for Obama!  He's the only guy who really wants to listen to the people!"  And yeah...that's pretty much what I'm saying, I'm not going to deny it.

P.S. I've got pictures and a video of most of Obama's speech from last night that I will post as soon as I get it off the SD card.

The Election Game

Maybe it's a bit sick and cruel of me, but I really like the Wikipedia article on dating game shows. I am amused by the ease with which television and the willful self-humiliation entailed in appearing on such a show as the Dating Game or the Newlywed Game destroys "sacred" relationships between "soulmates." Perhaps there's some science behind this schadenfreude, and obviously, it's marketable. I think that at least part of the formula of these shows (one in particular, actually) could be adapted for use in elections.

Now for a nice anecdote: Last week, I was staffing the Democratic Party of New Mexico booth at the New Mexico State Fair, along with my parents and a few other members of the Jason Marks PRC campaign. We were registering voters and handing out buttons and stickers and pamphlets and things, and it was all great. Then, up comes this woman and she asks us if we have any Barack Obama signs or anything. We say "no, everyone in the entire state is out, including their headquarters." (Which is true, by the way.) The woman says that she really wants to go get something advertising Obama because she just overheard someone at the Republican Party booth say "I want to register to vote because I don't want a black man as President."

Well, at least he's got a reason, right? Anyway, this got me thinking, why should what someone looks like, or even what they sound like, or how old they are, determine if you vote for them or not? Unfortunately, that is a reality of American politics today, that is why Kennedy won the 1960 presidential debate, that is why the nomination of Sarah Palin (or even the thought of nominating Hillary Clinton) was so dramatic.

Can we design a better system? Is it possible to disassociate the person from the politics? I say we give it a shot. Tell both parties (or all of them, actually!) to come up with summarized platforms and then disseminate these platforms, through the press, through the schools, through any possible outlet, to the voting public. Then, come election day, each voter simply votes for the party, not the candidate, whose platform they most agree with.

I think this addresses several problems with the current voting process:

1. It eliminates (mostly) votes based upon physical appearance, race, gender, and other, non-policy-related criteria.

2. It has the potential to lower the amount of voter confusion on candidates' stances on issues.

3. It frees up the really charismatic people to go where we need them: dealing with other countries to patch up relations.

4. No more arguments over flip-flopping!

Conversely, it could also create a few problems:

1. Voters may not be able to rally passionately around a candidate (but doesn't passion blind judgment?)

2. It requires voters to educate themselves (I've already written about this. Basically, if voter's aren't informed in the first place, any decisions they make will be uninformed, also, and, in my eyes, invalid).

Personally, I think that having charismatic leaders is great, but a person should not be elected because they are charismatic. A party should be elected because of its stances on the issues, then charismatic officials should be appointed because they are charismatic and it's a job requirement for many positions. Voters should not base their opinions on appearance.

P.S. Maybe politicians should write anonymous blogs on their positions. They could hold Q and A sessions virtually. Ahhhhh, the possibilities unlocked with the internet....