Election Reform

Watch Them, Love Them, They are Honorable
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Educated Voters--satire
Watch Them, Love Them, They are Honorable
ON HOW THE POWER ELITE HAS TAKEN OVER THE ELECTIONS--ROBERT KENNEDY, PALAST/
2008 election & voter purging
How Canada keeps business bucks out
Canadian Provincial election laws
Costs of U.S. federal elections
Seven U.S. States passed election funding reforms
Australian Public Funding Elections
American Democracy--Jim Hightower
Canadian Politics, an over view

Only in this country do we have a media propaganda machine that devotes so much time to glorifying a system that is rotten to the core.  It is all part of the great deception game, done so that viewers accept the legalized bribery called campaign donations.  England, Canada, and France take under 2 months for a process which we take over a year. 

I don’t watch them because I can’t stand liars.  What they say is for the audience and is a very poor predictor—especially with neocons—of what they will do. I don’t watch them because I don’t want to form an emotional bond to them, because this bond will cloud my ability to understand and respond to their policies.  Unfortunately this bonding process influence votes. I find Bush Junior, Hillary and Obama come across as very likeable people.  Advertising works, and they are selling themselves. 

Palin-Biden debate sets TV ratings record

By Steve Gorman, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/04/AR2008100400672.html 

Reuters
Saturday, October 4, 2008; 6:23 AM

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sarah Palin's televised showdown with Joe Biden drew nearly 70 million U.S. viewers, far surpassing last week's John McCain-Barack Obama face-off and ranking as the most watched vice presidential debate ever.

The three-way debate in October 1992, like the Palin-Biden contest on Thursday, pulled in 69.9 million viewers, Nielsen Media Research said.  Nielsen analyst Anne Elliot suggested that nearly 70 million viewers in 1992 represented a bigger achievement, given there were roughly 60 million fewer potential viewers in the United States then.  The tally for the Palin-Biden contest in St. Louis easily eclipsed the 52.4 million viewers who tuned in last Friday for this year's first presidential debate between McCain, an Arizona senator, and Obama, a senator from Illinois.  The Public Broadcasting Service, whose audience is not counted by Nielsen, estimated its network added 3.5 million viewers to the total for Palin and Biden, versus 2.6 million for McCain-Obama.  The most watched televised presidential debate on record is the 1980 showdown between Democratic President Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan, which drew 80.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.  By that measure, the historic first three matchups in 1960 between Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon rank as the top three presidential debates, garnering household ratings ranging from 59.1 to 61.0.  By comparison, the Carter-Reagan debate ranks fourth, with a 58.9 rating. Palin and Biden scored a 41.7.  The Palin-Biden contest still earns a place in the Nielsen record books as the most viewed between vice presidential candidates, breaking the record held by the debate between Democrat Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major-party ticket, and Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush. Their showdown in 1984 averaged 56.7 million viewers.

 

The speeches have little to do with understanding the issues.  Better if each of the candidates were as part of a campaign reform  to write in essay form their position on each major issue in essay form, along with an abstract thereof.  And these position papers were mailed to every household in the U.S.?  Let the parties select the candidates and the election was to occur one month after the mail of the position papers.  TV & radio expenses/time should be limited, and funding supplied as in Canada by the government.  A similar system needs to be in place for those running for Congress.  This would end our system of legalized bribery   

Australia election cost in 1996 under $27,000,000 (doesn’t include cost of setting up polling places), which is about $1 per person.  In Canada for the 2006 election the three principle parties received $18,278,278 each. The other 11 parties received a grand total of about $18 million.  Funding is based upon votes received in the previous election.  There is a third party spending limit of $150,000 per candidate on national level, and $3,000 in each constituency.  Corporate and union donations are limited to $1,000 per year, individuals to $1,100.

 

 

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Teddy Roosevelt's advice that, "We must drive the special interests out of politics. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains."