February 10, 2016
Presidential Campaign Madness
Why make things simple when they can be complicated?
- Groucho Marx
This presidential campaign has been going on for 11 months and it's sickening to watch. On all sides. And to think we have another eight months of this political sewage. Americans should be insulted. America should be embarrassed. And that goes for these "debates" too because they're not debates at all. They're more like game shows, at least for the Republicans
Also, why do these "debates" have audiences? Debates aren't supposed to be like basketball games where the fans cheer baskets and blocked shots. Debates, real debates, should be in a TV studio without an audience. And no one even mentions this.
Of course, the candidates of both parties want an audience because their applause and outbursts dove tail very nicely to their narratives and talking points. Without an audience's reaction they'd fall flat. But is that any way to have a mature, intelligent, substantive debate?
I think I answered my own question.
Be that as it may. Allowing audiences to applaud at these "debates" shouldn't be a surprise when you look at the asinine way we elect our president. The process takes way too long, is way too complicated, and makes no sense whatsoever. I don't know what's worse, the asinine system, or the fact that no one, not a candidate or the media, ever so much as questions it, let alone tries to change it.
I'm going to detail each segment of this asinine Rube Goldberg Presidential election system and then offer my common sense ideas that will make it a lot simpler and shorter.
The endless 20-month presidential campaign
Senator Ted Cruz officially announced his candidacy for president last March, over 10 months before the Iowa Caucuses and 19 months before the general election (Barack Obama started his campaign a month earlier in 2007). And the rest of the candidates soon followed.
Think about that for a moment. This campaign began two weeks before the baseball season started and won't end until, not one, but two World Series' will have been played.
This is madness. And no one questions it.
Campaigning for president started so early, that when ISIS comes up in the debates, the candidate's responses are irrelevant because by the time the new president takes office, the situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq could be dramatically different. It would be like, last summer and fall, debating which football teams will make the playoffs in January...of 2017!
These candidates started campaigning so early that the dates for the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary weren't even set yet.
We've had enough of the 2015/2016 presidential campaign already to last half a generation. And we have nine months to go. What does that tell you?
The Primaries
Why does Iowa and New Hampshire have so much power? Why do they get to decide who remains in the race and who doesn't?
Also, by making Iowa and New Hampshire the "first in the nation to decide," it forces candidates to pander to those two states. See ethanol, which has been a boondoggle, and will continue to be as long as Iowa plays such an important role in Presidential politics.
Also, why are the primaries spread out, from February to June? This forces Senators and House members to leave Washington while Congress is in session to campaign and be home for their primary. And why schedule these primaries and caucuses in the middle of winter when a storm can easily disrupt them?
This is madness. And no one questions it.
The Delegates
The reason for presidential primaries are to elect delegates to each party's national convention. At one time, it was up to these delegates to actually nominate the President and Vice President. So they did play a direct role in the nominating process. But those days are long gone because (in non-Trump years) the nominee is known months before convention.
That said, the pumped up, media-driven "all important Iowa caucus," doesn't even elect delegates to the national convention. They're electing delegates for their county conventions. It's there where they'll elect delegates for their state convention, and it's there where delegates are selected for the national conventions.
Why do they bother? Why is it so complicated?
But wait, it gets even more asinine.
As far as Iowa's caucus goes, if a candidate doesn't reach a certain percentage of the vote at a particular caucus site, those voters have to choose another candidate.
Also, Iowa caucus losers can come away with more delegates than the winner, who - and it defies logic - may not get any! It happened in 2012. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum basically finished in a tie, although it was later determined that Santorum won. But Ron Paul, who finished third, came away with the most delegates! Huh? What?
Yup. Even though he finished third, Paul won 22 out of 27 delegates that winter night. And Santorum didn't get any! How is that possible? And at the state convention, Paul won 21 out of 25 delegates (why one total is 27 and the other 25, I have no idea, and I'm not going to bother finding out).
When the third place finisher of a presidential caucus gets a vast majority of the delegates, and the winner doesn't get any, you'd think that would be a problem. But it isn't because no one questions it.
But wait, it gets even more asinine.
Last week in Iowa, delegates came down to, literally, a flip of a coin. Also, even though Iowa sends 52 delegates to the Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton came away with 699.57 "state delegate equivalents" and Sanders' 695.49, with 2.28 remaining to be decided.
Oh, "state delegate equivalents," of course. So 1400 or so "state delegate equivalents" will be choosing 52 delegates to send to the national convention.
I don't know who's more stupid, the guy who came up with this moronic system, or those who agreed that it was a good idea.
Also, as you can see, candidates can receive fractional delegates. And candidates can receive fractional delegates to the national conventions as well. How is that possible? Darned if I know. So one delegate only gets half a vote at the convention?
If all this isn't enough, some states award delegates proportionally based on the primary vote, while others are "winner take all" where the winner gets all of them. Some states have a combination of the two. And each party does it differently, and they change it every four years.
In New Hampshire, at least for the GOP, it is proportional, but candidates who don't get 10% of the vote, don't get any delegates; theirs go to the winner.
This is madness. Why is this so complicated? But no one questions it.
Oh, when I said Iowa is allotted 52 delegates, at least for the Democrats, it's not that simple (of course is isn't). There are 44 are "pledged" delegates. Clinton will get 23 and Sanders 21, regardless of what happens at the waste-of-time county and state conventions (I assume). Why there's eight more, presumably "unpledged" delegates (not committed to any particular candidate), and how they're chosen, I have no idea. And I'm not going to try and figure that one out either.
Madness.
Super Delegates
Last August, 11 months before the Democratic convention, and more than five months before a single vote would be cast, Hillary Clinton secured over 60% of the super delegates.
Huh? What? And what the hell is a super delegate?
But this is what I'm talking about. When you have "super delegates," whatever they are, being secured a year before the convention and months before a single vote has been cast, that's a sign, one of the many, that your system is more complicated than it has to be. And maybe even rigged. This is madness. But no one questions it.
But wait, there's more!
Last night, despite Sanders beating Clinton by 22 points - 22 points! - they're going to split New Hampshire's 32 delegates, 15-15, with two to be decided. Huh? What?
Yup. All because of Clinton's super delegates!
Madness.
Ballot Access
It's possible to be on the primary ballot in some but not all the counties of a particular state. That's because not only do states have their own ballot rules, but counties have their own set of rules too. Having to deal with the rules of all 50 states is crazy and complicated enough, but I get it. Electoral power is with the states. But then having to deal with ballot access on a county by county basis? Seriously?
Plus, the candidates have to organize their campaigns down to the local level (see Iowa's moronic caucuses) to make sure they'd have delegates to send to the county, state and national conventions.
Again, this is madness. But not a single candidate questions it. Makes me wonder; if a candidate is too stupid to even question a mountain of Rube Goldberg ballot access and delegate rules set up by the states, counties and parties - that they themselves have to figure out - and also don't question any other aspect of this asinine presidential election system, such as its length or cost, which is another insane story by itself, then, as president, how will he or she ever question the complexity of health insurance, the tax code or anything else?
My Presidential Election system
Electing a president is just an election, that's all it is. It shouldn't take this long and shouldn't be this complicated. Therefore, common sense changes, including Constitutional changes, must be made.
Have a national primary day
Every state will have all their primaries on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Yes, every state, every race, including, every four years, the presidential primary.
The presidential candidates in both parties (any party) with the most votes is the nominee. That's how it is for all primary elections so why not for president? And as a result, we can get rid of the delegates - every single one - because they're no longer needed.
Presidential candidates in both parties who have the most delegates receive the most votes and become the nominee anyway. So why bother with delegates and all the nonsense that comes with them? Heck, the nomination of both parties is sewn up months before all the primaries are over and the delegates - "pledged, "unpledged," "super" or "fractional" - will all support the nominee at the convention, regardless of whose delegates they are.
So besides complicating the process to no end, delegates are useless and obsolete. So get rid of them! No more delegates, super delegates, state delegate equivalents, fractional delegates, pledged delegates and unpledged delegates. The presidential candidates in both parties who gets the most votes on that Sunday after Labor Day is the nominee. Period. What a concept.
If Iowa and other caucus states still want to keep their asinine caucuses', they can, as long as each caucus voter can cast a vote for the candidate of their choice, even if their candidate gets less than whatever the caucus threshold allows, because the votes are all that's going to count.
(2016 is an aberration. This year it's possible that the candidate with the most delegates won't have enough to secure the nomination. That hasn't happened in decades. If that's the case, he would have gotten the most votes, but with the way convention rules are - yup, more complicated rules, and they're changed every four years - someone else could get the nomination.)
And Election Day will be moved to the first Sunday in November. And the polls, on both days, must be open from 7 AM to 9 PM, local time.
This does a number of things:
1) Presidential candidates won't have to kick off their primary campaigns 10 months before Iowa's February caucus, or even three months before, because there won't be an Iowa caucus anymore!
So not only will this push the start of all primary campaigns forward, but shorten the general campaigns as well. Thank God.
2) Congress breaks for a couple of weeks around Memorial Day and July 4th, and are in recess in August for the summer break (state legislatures are part-time so they're not in session during the summer anyway). It's these "built-in" holes in the Congressional calendar where incumbents can go home to campaign and raise money for the September primary. So Senators and House members won't have to leave Washington while Congress is in session any more.
Congress can return to session in mid September for two or three weeks before adjourning for the general campaign.
3) Moving the primaries and general election to Sunday will give more Americans the opportunity to vote. And I don't want to hear that "Sunday is a religious day" and "a church day" because if Americans can go to picnics, parades, weddings, ball games and the supermarket every Sunday of the year, then they can take time out to vote just two Sunday's a year.
4) Currently, tens of millions of Americans don't have a say in the presidential primary because the nominee is known before they get to vote, while voters in the early states have all the power. So having one primary day gives all Americans an equal say.
5) In presidential years, some states have two primary elections (when the presidential primary is separate from the rest of their elections). Some states, like South Carolina and Nevada, have the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries/caucuses on separate days!
So by having one primary day for all of the state's elections, it'll save the states money (for those that do have two or even three separate primary elections).
6) This will do away with the four-day, made-for-TV, colossal waste of time national conventions. What a shame, huh?
Presidential nominees will still have to formally accept their party's "nomination." So each party will get three hours of prime time during the last week of September for that (the last Tuesday and Thursday of the month). Three hours is enough time for a keynote speaker and the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates to give their speeches. And it won't be in an arena or stadium in front of tens of thousands. To save money, it can be done a theater in front of a couple of thousand.
Dump the Electoral College
While we're drastically changing the way we elect a president, we might as well do away with the ancient, asinine and obsolete Electoral College as well. Every single politician, whether at the local, state or federal level, is elected by the popular vote. Most votes wins. Novel idea, huh? So why do we insist on keeping the 18th century Electoral College for presidential elections?
Other than making a lot of sense (that is allowed, isn't it?) electing a president based on the popular vote would give the nominees reasons to campaign in more states. Because as it is now, they spend most of their time in a handful of toss up states, such as Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Colorado and New Mexico, and pander to those voters and their interests every step of the way. But by going to a popular vote, it will give the Republican nominee a reason to campaign in blue states such as California, Illinois, New York and Connecticut, and the Democrat in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona. And vice versa.
This also means votes cast for the Democrat in red states and the Republican in blue states will matter. And vice versa.
It also means we'll no longer elect a president that didn't receive the most votes (it happened four out of the 56 elections we've had in our history).
Also, currently, American citizens who live abroad choose what state they want their presidential vote to count in. That shows how ridiculous the Electoral College is. But without it, that unfair advantage (if you want to call it that) is taken away; and rightfully so.
If anyone is still hung up on the Electoral College, then how come they never call for electing Governors, Senators and other state-wide office holders in similar fashion?
Like delegates, the Electoral College is obsolete and makes no sense in the 21st century.
Primary ballot access.
Obviously, getting on to the presidential primary ballot can't be easy or else the ballot would be filled with thousands of candidates. So only serious candidates need apply. And that means 1) an organized national campaign, and 2) signatures from registered voters. How many in how many states? And what about the costs to the states that have to confirm and count only the signatures from registered voters? That would need to be determined. But I was thinking something like 5,000 signatures in say 10 states (within a time frame of March to June), not including the home state of the candidate, and at least $5,000 paid to each of those 10 states to pay for the confirmation of those signatures (if that's too easy, then it could be 12 or 15 states).
And all these signatures must be real, in person, not online.
Once a candidate fulfills those requirements, he's on the primary ballot in every county in every state in the country. Simple (is that allowed?).
The requirements for getting on the general election ballot as an independent should be 10,000 signatures in 20, maybe 25 states (within a June to August time frame) and $10,000 paid to each state for the confirmation of the signatures.
Campaign financing
Electoral reform wouldn't be complete without campaign finance reform. My ideas for that are in this post, but an even better idea is within this one.
The "What if's...?"
Should a presidential nominee "win" and be declared a party's nominee with less than 50% of the primary vote? If not, then there would have to be a runoff between the top two finishers the following Sunday (or the one after that). But who'd be allowed to vote in it? I'd assume, only those who voted in that party's primary and party members.
(What if the "winner" of the general election doesn't get 50% of the vote? Would there have to be a runoff? Because it wouldn't make sense to have runoffs for the primary and not general election. So maybe there shouldn't be any runoffs. Or, instead of 50% being the cut off for a runoff, you could have say 40% for the primary and 45% for the general. With those percentages, runoff's would be rare, especially for the general. Personally, I wouldn't bother with runoffs at all.)
Since there wouldn't be enough time to mail absentee ballots for a run off, a second ballot would have to be included with the first mailing and the voter would have to vote absentee for the runoff.
Currently, some states have "open primaries" where anyone can vote for candidates in either party, while others have "closed primaries" where only declared voters of a particular party can vote in that party's primaries. It should be the same in every state, one way or the other. To make it more agreeable, all states should have "open primaries." However, voters must be prevented from voting for a candidate in both parties because Democratic voters, for example, would vote for someone other than the Republican front runner (to force a run off, should there be one, or for a candidate their party's nominee would rather run against).
This is also why only those who voted in the original party's primary and that party's voters should be allowed to vote in a primary runoff because voters from the opposite party could vote for the candidate who they think would be easier for their party's nominee to run against.
Conclusion
We couldn't have come up with a more asinine, senseless and complicated way to elect a president if we tried. But as I've shown, it doesn't have to be this way.
Of course these common sense ideas would be met with resistance from Iowa and New Hampshire, and the next two primary and caucus states in line, South Carolina and Nevada. Of course they will because Americans are selfish. Everyone has to have their way.
No more. What I've outlined here is the way it should be. And if a few states don't like it, or if a party doesn't like it, too bad. All our campaigns take way too long and the presidential campaign is ridiculous. So it's time for all Americans, and that includes the politicians, to start doing what's best for the country, not themselves. And they can begin by changing the way we elect our presidents.
If not, then the 2020 presidential campaign will begin less then two and half years after this this one ends.
March 8 insert:
Markos does a very good job comparing turnout between primaries and caucuses so far. It's not a surprise. There's more turnout in primaries while caucuses only bring out a handful of voters. That's because caucuses not only require a commitment, but they have a specific time frame. And they take hours. Who has time to do that?
So caucuses do a very good job of keeping turnout low. Very low. Is that any way to hold an election?
Even more reason to dump the caucuses altogether.
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