I have decided that campaign finance reform is hopeless, as Congress is currently composed; to expect meaningful reform from a bunch of power-addicted money-grubbers short of a truly revolutionary political groundswell is naive. However, since Congress has made the selling of members’ votes essentially a matter of sale on the free market, I decided that it might really represent reform by simply extending the right to individuals to sell one’s vote in an election directly to a particular campaign. Therefore, I propose we make vote-selling completely legal (along with vote-buying, of course). As long as all vote purchases are duly publically recorded, in the same manner financial contributions are now, what’s the real harm? Once the voter registration rolls for a particular election are closed, and the election ballot’s contents has been set, people could begin voting immediately. This would still not rule out voting in the traditional manner, of course; it would simply make it foolishly unprofitable NOT to vote. Think what a boon this would be to the Poor – with all the various offices up for grabs during one particular election, they could collect quite a purse from all the contestants – it would be sort of like getting two income tax refunds a year (and about six months apart, at that). Money spent trying to “buy votes” by cluttering the airwaves with smarmy or mud-slinging campaign commercials would be greatly reduced. The widely-perceived hyprocrisy that characterizes our politics would be overthrown. Nobody would pretend that they were necessarily voting for the best candidate, or on the socially-beneficial side of any proposition. And please note, this does not mean that voters couldn’t make their choices based to some degree on their ideology, or personal perception of the best candidate – just that it would pay them more to do so, even if the ‘other side’ might offer more for their individual vote. As the official date of the election approached, the publicly posted tallies up to that point would also mean that voters who wait until the end of the process may find their votes more valuable than those who jumped in at the start.
I live in Michigan, which is considered to be a “must have” state for both major parties, AND the Senate race in this state is another hotly contested AND the House o’Reps seat in the area I vote in is also a “key race” per both major parties.
My solution was to offer to vote for whomever REFUSED to advertise… it’s my plantif cry for some peace in the upcoming months. I fear that I will have no takers…