A big question for everybody

Have you really learned anything from those political soundbites? The main purpose seems not to inform, just to say, "Hey, morons, my opponent sucks." I wish I had the money. No wonder the media conglomerates grow stronger and stronger with an infusion of cash like that. They have every incentive to support the status quo. No wonder we get such weak candidates, those are the ones that need to spend the most.

Yes, I've learned that is the depth of character on the two choices available.

Daniel, my posts are not contradictory. What I would like to see is the dismantling of the electoral college as it directly goes against the principles of our democracy, if you are going to be calling it that. Second, I would like to see REAL campaign finance reform. Get rid of all the money that doesn't belong there. How about these stats?

the 2 candidates spent a total of $63,500 of their own money

1.5 billion was spent on the election, much of that tax dollars and contributions from people who make very little money each year

the 2 jerks running are worth hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe billions). Add in the vice presidential candidates and it soars that much more. 4 mega rich people that need to take tax dollars away from social security, education, etc., to run for office?

if you are going to allow the process to be ruled by the two parties who can at a whim cut third party candidates out of debates, off of ballets and tie them up with thousands of lawsuites to protect the 2 parties from competition, then it bites the other way too! We no longer match tax dollars to campaign dollars! Simple. The law of campaign matching money was created to give candidates without the money a chance to compete but since the rich guys want to cut them out and pervert the system, toss it out! They only spend their own money and money legally raised by their parties!

The candidates the have to have real debates, not staged jokes like what they give us now. They also would have to travel around the country instead of going to Ohio over 40 times a year and not going to 15 states once!

For the people, by the people, PERIOD.

ok, I misunderstood, I thought you were upset at the fact they use mass media and spend money on it, but rather your upset at the source of the money. Acceptable.

The candidates the have to have real debates, not staged jokes like what they give us now. They also would have to travel around the country instead of going to Ohio over 40 times a year and not going to 15 states once!

Actually I doubt this would happen. Instead they would focus on large population states and skip over the ones that do not have a large population base. For example California has 35,484,453 people (as of 2003). North Dakota has 633,837 (also as of 2003). That makes CA 56 times more important to a candidate than ND using Popular Vote. Using the Electoral Vote system CA is only 18 times more important than ND thereby giving ND more representation for their issues. With the federal government expanding it's role in all areas of rule this would mean more and more that large urban populations would decide many issues from social to economical. This will widen the gap in differences between Americans, maybe causing a split down the road (I'm not sure that is a bad thing)

They would still use mass media and emotional ads as those are far more effective in making the general public vote one way or the other than actual debate (especially when there is little choice between the candidates). Frankly, the general public of America buys a car based on which super model the actor in the ad is able to land, and sadly their presidential decisions have just as much depth.

Great discussion though.

But don't forget, if you were talking popular vote, you may have many many more votes in California but 3/4 of them will be democrats where as south dakota is a republican state that sometimes votes democrat so they may be more of a target as the break in the large states like NY, CA, TX are already a foregone conclusion to some extent.

I have been up all night watching the returns and it just still makes me angry that the votes of so many people are invalidated by the electoral college. Some states went 50%/49% for the two major bozos. So half that state is tossed away. If Bush has now won and is in fact re-elected, out of 112,000,000 people that it looks like voted, he won by less than 3,000,000. What is that? 2-3%? That is really not much when you think about it but I am at least happy if the winner actually wins the popular vote this time around even as I may be unhappy with the results.