Are you following the Presidential election process? Its been going on a long time hasn’t it?
I remember back in 2006 when we were starting to see severe signs that our economy was in very serious trouble.
All anyone was talking about in the news media and even on Sunday morning political talk shows like 'Meet the Press' with the late Tim Russet, Face the Nation, This Week George Stephanopoulos, Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Fox News Sunday Chris Wallace, was the Presidential election that wouldn’t even start for over a year.
The point is that there are so many serious issues we need to be better informed about these days but all we hear about is the latest gossip about a bunch of candidates that are, well,,, part of the problem. I don’t mean that they’re over extended election process is getting in the way of discussing the real issues, which it is. I mean they are all elected officials in Washington already, members of the US Senate no less. So not only do they have better things to do than waste our time and their own making bids for the White House two and a half years before they’ve a shot at being President, they’re part of the problem that’s ripping this country apart which begs the question of why they’re the only choices we have for who will replace Bush.
I mean have you ever heard any of them using their candidacies as bully pulpits to take the lead on any of the major issues that it seems are surfacing daily with new twists and turns on how bad things really are in our economy? Not only haven’t they, they’ve dodged those kinds of issues religiously from the beginning. In fact they’ve pretty much dodged all the issues that are relevant to what needs to be done for us now while they’re fighting between themselves politely over issues I would rather find more interesting coming from Hollywood gossip columns that only serve to distract the news media from discussing key issues that our nations survival depends on us knowing everything we can about in the future.
Take for instance last week when four Wall Street energy consultants all of whom are highly respected in their fields testified before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee telling how oil prices are unrealistically high with regard to true supply and demand forces and could be cut in half in 30 days if the legislation they’re considering was passed. Even worse they claimed it could be done much sooner because the truth is no news laws need to be passed, that all that needs to be done is for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to enforce existing laws. Does anyone remember how many times they’ve heard the catch phrase that there’s “no silver bullet to bring down oil prices” which has been religiously used by everyone one in Washington to dismiss high gasoline prices as a relevant topic for the Presidential election debate.
The point is that Washington is the problem with our country right now but all we’re given for choices for who will fix the political and legislative process are people who are part of the problem. And it’s not so much even that. It’s the political election process itself that stinks worse than our rotting economy and boiling infectious caldron of mentally deranged leaders on Capitol Hill who we’ve already made the mistake of electing thus far.
The way the election process is and always has been, the candidates are not challenged to perform, to get results, to lead. They simply put themselves out there to see who we like the most like they’re blind dates who we get to choose from for who we want to be wedded to. But for the most part in this country, before people get married anymore, they date, mate, live together, and even have children. It’s only after they’ve thoroughly vetting each other that they get married. But it seems now even as we’re already somewhat attached matrimonially to these candidates, the three of them who are all US Senators, they seem to have set aside their access to power as an asset they could share with us where they can prove themselves to be presidential instead of making us rely on faith in their promises for why we should give them the keys to the most powerful political position in the world.
But even more importantly is the money they spend running around the country smiling and making promises. With the country in perhaps the worst financial crisis we’ve ever faced even as stories are come out that there are no shortages of products and services, that the only problems we have are with Wall Street banks and investment institutions who’ve made so many mistakes with our money that they’re covering their personal assets by raising the prices of everything we need to bail themselves out of it, our candidates are running around spending billions upon billions of dollars living like royalty while doing nothing to fix what’s wrong. As far as I can see, none of what they’re doing is changing anything, which it isn’t supposed to. They’re not supposed to be leading now. They’re just seeing which one of them we like the most who will still not get the chance to lead until 2009.
But in this country, a person doesn’t have to be an elected official to lead, certainly not the President on the United States. And they’re already US Senators. What I mean is that unlike any other country, I can lead, you can lead. If an American sees a problem and has a solution, they can go right out and fix it. In fact government is really the least effective way to try to fix problems in this country because the Constitution protects our right to do in such a strict way that by the time government is able to find legal ways to force change on us, it doesn’t really work to solve the problem, many times just making everything worse.
What if I had read about the testimony on Capitol Hill last week about oil prices being able to be cut in half in just a few weeks if Bush wasn’t allowing the commodities market to be gamed ignoring enforcing laws that could bring down prices and I wanted to do something about it. Well I did read about it and I wrote about it too. But still most Americans didn’t hear about the story as being as relevant as it is to all our most immediate dire needs. But what if Obama or McCain, or even Clinton who I think will never be all the way out of this race, read about it and used their access to us to educate us about what could be done about it. Then we wouldn’t be hearing about how Barack Obama is going to help Hillary raise money to pay off her 22 million dollar campaign finance debts. Did you hear me, 22 million dollars? That’s how much she still owes, money she has already spent that she expected to raise when she won the Democratic nomination. But then we would be hearing about how Bush is ordering the CFTC to do its job and whoever was the candidate who took the lead on that issue would likely be our next President.
Enough about them. My vision for change is an open election process that turns a profit while solving the issues of the day before candidates ever get to the White House. I want to see the productions of reality TV shows where candidates compete for who’s best suited to lead us in solving the major issues of the day, not by talking about it and making promises but getting out there and doing it using the bully pulpit of the realty TV show and money from sponsors to help Americans build dreams and change the world, to use the show to showcase the best this country has to offer in its expression of freedom while making money rather than driving the political process into debt.
And in this new election process, anyone can become a candidate just like they chose singers for American Idle, an open, anyone can come to vetting process to find the best candidates who then go on to compete for who can best get out in the world and make things happens where no matter who wins or loses, or even if the candidate who wins is not actually elected to the White House, everyone’s a winner. I mean I am looking out here at a country that has a lot of problems that can be solved right now but clearly no one in Washington has any interest in helping us with it. So looking forward to new a President to fix things is fruitless especially when we’re allowed to get out here and fix things for ourselves.
I am willing to bet that if a reality TV show to choose the next President were launched even as late as a month before the Presidential election itself, by the time the election was over, we will have already solved much or our worries for the future since it seems that all it would take for the price of oil to come down would be if we all knew the truth about it so existing laws would have to be enforced. And I have no doubt that these are the kinds of issues that would get the most attention on this kind of reality TV show which I am sure would yield some of the best ratings ever produced by any entertainment industry.
To get a better I idea of what my dream is for a perfect American election process is, watch the video below.
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