This is inspired by Satan’s current post that if all the presidential candidates suck, then who should be president?
My opinion is that our current ad hoc, jerry-rigged method for selecting a president is insane. We have two permanent, entrenched extra-constitutional parties whose candidates spend most of their time fundraising in order to buy advertising time from TV stations that use the public airwaves for free, so that they can air sound bite commercials that specialize in distortion and scare tactics. We have a primary system that vests enormous power in a tiny northeastern state no one cares about otherwise and that leaves most of the country out of the selection process altogether. We have political conventions that are glorified TV commercials that no one watches. We have debates that look and sound just like talk shows, and comedy talk shows where the candidates come on and tell jokes. We have TV news shows that analyze everything as a horse race, and polls and pollsters that seem to know everything and nothing at the same time. We have a situation where the campaign goes on endlessly, and then starts up again right after the election.
No one with a logical mind would design the system this way, so how should it be designed? How can we realistically improve the presidential selection process?
My own proposals would be to repeal 22nd Amendment, which keeps a president from being elected more than twice, because I dislike the lame duck presidency it produces. I would require TV stations to provide many 30 minute blocks of time to candidates, as a condition to keeping their licenses. I would give the opposition the next 15 minutes as rebuttal. I would have Roger Ebert critique campaign commercials. I would have regional primaries, that alternate every 4 years, so that some years the candidate would be selected by the time New Hampshire got to vote. In debates, I would have Republican make-up artists work on Democratic candidates, and visa versa. I could go on, but won’t.