I could suggest a goodly number of improvements over the method, but I think my system would still provide a significant advantage even if the method for electing the college stays the same as it is today.
If the smoke-filled room system had remained in place, I can only think of two party nominees in recent history that would have been different:
- Clinton over Obama in '08
- JEB! over Trump in '16.
All of the rest would have remained the same.
Somehow I doubt that GWB would have been canny enough to make his way to the top of the GOP candidacy. Him versus McCain or Romney? McCain would have had more cred and Romney would have been able to trade the necessary cows.
There’s really no way to know this. Remove the ridiculously rigorous slog of the primary season, and you might get candidates interested in the nomination that wouldn’t touch the primary with a 99-and-a-half-foot pole. Maybe in 2012, Paul Ryan’s interested in politicking with the party for the nom, but not interested in doing the whole primary thing. Or in 2008, maybe Sherrod Brown is interested.
Having to fundraise and do all that travelling and whatnot for more than a freaking year prior to the general likely turns otherwise good candidates away. It whittles down the candidate field to people who can attract the most attention and collect the most money, not who are necessarily good leaders/smart/qualified.
Bad as they may seem, primaries are probably a good system. They demonstrate that a candidate can get votes and win elections.
That said, the primary system could be set up on a more rational basis. Stop giving Iowa (which doesn’t even hold a primary) and New Hampshire all this influence. So something like dividing the country into ten groups of five states each; make each group a mix of big and small states that are spread out around the country. Then randomly assign the five-state groups to a series of ten primary days.
I wish that instead of the emphasis on campaign fundraising that they would instead just limit the amount that campaigns can spend on an election. Kinda like the salary cap in football: you can raise all the revenue you want, but you’re only going to be able to spend so much of it.
Yep, we’re the only country in the world with a primary system. I think the simple reality is restricting it to people who are “active party members”, i.e. not just registered Democrats or registered Republicans, but instead people who go to local GOP/Dem committee meetings, pay some form of membership dues etc tends to produce better candidates for the simple reason it is very hard for demagogues to get through an established party system.
Our electoral system does trend towards really big ten parties, that leave voters passionate about “niche” issues feeling left out. I think you could solve that sure, but not without serious framework revisions to our entire elections process, that would likely require a constitutional amendment.
Why would they be centrist? The ratings are still entirely subjective. And you can bet there’d be advertising by PACs that could easily be manipulated into ‘significant coordination.’ Add in conservative media too (MSM would be a bit less likely, owing their allegiance to facts over conspiracy theories).
The piles of money spent by the party committees. A lot depends on the election mechanism, as well. State- and territory-wide elections become problematic for larger electoral states, but would likely let in some less ‘political’ electors. Basing it on the current election model (one vote for elector from your district and two for statewide electors) would make things easier but tend to guarantee that things would break along party lines. One way or another, you’d be practically guaranteed to see the advertising from current primaries being transferred to electoral votes. (Perhaps some other format for the electoral vote?)
You’d also tend to have the equivalent of superdelegates. For instance, unless they were Nixon- or Trump-like, ex-Presidents and leaders of the major parties would have a pretty fair shot of owning an elector’s seat for the rest of their lives.
No, you’re doing just fine.
Please carry on.
A Foreigner.
Pull names out of a hat.
If that’s not acceptable, have anyone who’s interested in political office take courses in civics and conflict resolution. They can then put their name in the hat for local offices and are subject to a ratification vote by community members. After serving a term, they can put their names in the hat for higher office, again subject to ratification and more courses. No election campaigns, no appeals to emotion, no pandering–if you’re keen, pay your dues through courses and service and take your chances with the sorting hat and the trust of the community.
If this creates chaos at the state and federal levels, maybe we could reconsider our notions of community, nation, and state–the last two have outlived their usefulness imho, except as a very slight and occasional and temporary counter to the power of wealth.
You crazy anarchist, Prince !
Each party should run its own Hunger Games, let the finalists then compete in a national Hunger Games, winner take all.
The average of 1 and 0 is 0.5. The average of 0.6 and 0.6 is 0.6.
0.6 > 0.5
One think both Trump and Bernie Sanders have in common was both were outsiders to their parties and the voters were sick and tired of whom the party bosses picked. Worse for democrats - they had NO CHOICE. It was Hillary or nobody until Sanders came along.
Now in 2020 because of Trump its looks like other person from business and the media are going to run.
So hate Trump all you want, you have to admit he’s opened up the doors of the parties.
Just a small point … we’ve had five one-term Presidents in the past 116 years (Taft, Hoover, Carter, Ford and George XLI) who didn’t die in office … 12 Presidents who won re-election… and two who died in office … that’s actually a pretty good track record for electing good people in the first place …
I think political parties can use whatever method they want to when they choose a candidate … and the primary system obviously allows the rank-and-file members to nominate who they want even over their party leadership’s strident objections … and that’s a good thing …
Ditch the electoral college … base the general election on popular vote … the electoral college doesn’t fail very often, but it still fails …
Is it, though?
Strictly speaking, since the OP’s premise is maybe the parties do a crappy job of choosing candidates, a president being re-elected just means the answer to “why’d you vote for that dolt” can be “because the challenger was even worse.”
Problem is, it’s an average weighted by the proportion of one party’s electors to the other’s, which is fine as long as it’s somewhere very near 1, but varies more and more as you get further away.
If you let the electors score the candidates on some set of criteria, then no elector is ever going to give any candidate a score of 0.6 . You’ll get scores of 1.0 for candidates the elector likes (i.e., of the same party), and 0.0 for candidates the elector doesn’t like (i.e., of the other party), and maybe a few 0.99s and 0.01s to distinguish between members of the same party.
Alright, I’ll grant that it’s possible that the partisan hacks will simply ignore everything and max everything out for one guy and zero everything for everyone else.
So, to also add a system for electing the Electoral College:
Each state will select 12 random people from the populace (lottery, jury rolls, etc.). Those 12 will meet and elect from themselves one person to serve as the state Elector.
This is magical thinking, though I know you don’t realize it.
The magic, is the idea that because a given leader represents the majority of the whims of the entirety of the population, that the leader will be the best person for the job. And that’s absurd, when you realize that the vast majority of us, even the ones who really work to know who we are voting for, just don’t have either the time or the resources, and most of all THE DIRECT KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT’S BEST FOR THE COUNTRY, to recognize the best person.
This is also why, despite the fact that we now have the technology required to do so, we NEVER want to go to a system where all of the people vote on each major issue directly, and do away with representative government altogether.
The reason why we hire a specialist to fix our car, or kill our pests, is because we want the job done well.