So it was kind of hard not turning my blog into the same thing as every other anti-Bush blog during and after the election. Instead rather, I have thought long and hard about many different aspects of the election and plan to make several +5 insightful posts at least loosely related to it. This being the first of those.
It has become quite apparent over the course of history that the vast majority of people in the US and the world, dislike our two party system. You wont find too many people who really agree with and fully support one of the two candidates. Just about zero people support both of them simultaneously. There seems to be this common understanding that both Republicans and Democrats suck ass. The differences between them are existant, different enough to be meaningful, but not radically different. And the major opinion of people when it comes to third parties is that they often can find a third party they agree with, but believe it is a wasted vote. None of this is new, its just stuff everyone seems to know.
I’ve been thinking about possible solutions to our dilemma. Or interesting future courses of action that could result in fun, radical change, destruction of the system, etc. But recently a few ideas are moving towards the front of my mind and need further fleshing. The problem with all these ideas is that I cannot see a clear path leading to any of them coming into reality. All of them are future possibilities with no way to get to them from the current situation. However, they are interesting and fun ideas, so I want to share one of them with you now
The idea is just as the blog title says, an all-star political party. When people run for office now they run as a team. Vote for President and Vice-President for 2k8! etc. You never see generic stuff like vote Republican or Vote Democrat. Sometimes local candidates conceal their political party for various reasons. But since the damn party system exists you would think that people would use it to its fullest power? If you want people to vote in a block, run as a block. Right now every candidate has to campaign seperately for every position. If say, every republican campaigned for the republican party as a whole they could minimize campaign travel and increase block voting for themselves. Not something I agree with, but I do believe it is a wise campaigning tactic that is not used. Anyone know why?
Anyway, with this tactic in mind I believe we could form an All-Star Party. We wouldn’t pick a person to be president, a person to be VP and then try to get them in office. We would make a whole party consisting of famous people, political stars, incredibly popular and talented individuals from all over the place. Sure, one of them would be our presidential candiate. But one would be our VP. Another would be the person we promise to nominate for X cabinet position. There would in fact be a different person for each cabinet position on the campaign trail with us. Sure, they might not actually be the person due to the need for congress to accept the nomination the president makes, but they would be the first people we nominate. And all those people could campaing all over the country at the same time, rallying support wherever they go.
The real cool thing is that all these people will be famous and well known. We could even bring in people from left, right, center, up and down. It’s all good. Throw in people like Oprah, Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Ben Stein, Stephen Hawking, Jesse the Body, Jerry Springer, McCain, Nader, Perot?, Bill Clinton can be Secretary of State (no rule against it AFAIK), etc. Just load it on up with as many people as you can get in on it. People like me have some ideas that go way right (I’m indifferent about the environment, consumer protection is bs, personal responsibility, power to the states, etc.) and ideas that go way left (go poor people go, fsck evil corporations, war is bad peace is good, death penalty bad, freedom for all peoples, gays too, abortion ok by me, etc.). And the problem is that I can’t vote for particular issues, I have to take a big bag of presets. With the all star party I would feel safe because even though someone in the party might be someone I don’t like, the rest of them are good enough to weigh it out. It wont be a question of who you hate more. It will simply be a party that everyone either likes, feels dead even about, or slightly dislikes. As long as we mix the viewpoints up enough.
The problem I see with the plan is that people wont take it seriously. A party full of comedians, actors, talk show hosts, big name politicians and famous brains would look like a joke at first. That’s why it has to be started like 3 years before the actual election. If you start it up early and keep at it for a long enough time people will realize it isn’t a joke. They will begin to look at it seriously and give it careful consideration. And think of all the absolutely free publicity? The campaign would cost so much less than any before it. Not to mention the fat wallets of the famous people running would contribute nicely. Having people take it seriously is a big problem, but when they walk into the voting booth in November 2k8 and they see a row of celebrities they might just vote straight across.
