Dollars Could Lead to Voting
In my reading this morning this sentence happened in front of my eyes:
The legendary right-wing operative [Karl Rove] has been hard at work amassing $32 million for his tax-exempt organization ….
[source]
It's a discussion of money in politics, a common topic this close to an election, and a topic of considerable importance I think.
The common wisdom–which I'd very much like to see utterly debunked, or at least displaced–is that votes all come down to money: whichever candidate raises more money, whichever "side" of an issue brings in more cash, wins the vote! Wrapped up in that conventional wisdom are so many stereotypes (e.g., about how easily voters are swayed by paid political advertisements), and so much wasted money, that it irritates me.
But maybe, I thought when I read this, there's room for evolution. So Mr. Rove has the potential for 32 million, let's call them "votes" for now, that he can buy and distribute as he pleases. For some reason this put me in mind of the US Senate, Republicans, and the filibuster. Used to be, at least on the set of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", that a filibuster in the Senate required endless and continuous actual talking. However, it seems that all that talking was finally recognized as tiring and a waste of time, so instead of an actual filibuster (for each proposed bill has been the tactic recently, but that's beside the point) one merely has to say the word "filibuster" and it magically invokes a requirement for 60 votes for pseudo-cloture to pass a bill, instead of the 51 votes otherwise called for to do the job.
How easy and convenient the modern filibuster has become, all streamlined and soundbite-ish in scope, thus saving time for really important things.
In a similar vein I being to see the possibility for streamlining this political money-raising process. It's much too time-consuming and tiring, not to mention expensive. What a waste of money that could better be spent 1) on liberal social programs and 2) on conservative welfare for the rich. Can't we take a clue from the modern Senate and make the whole process less costly and time consuming. Of course!
Suppose for a moment that instead of contributing actual dollar to one or another entity for the purposes of supporting one or another candidate or proposition, contributors might instead merely make "pledges" to give so many dollars. To quantify it, make one pledge equal to one dollar.
Now, with this single level of abstraction there's really no need to make the pledges to intermediary organizations or entities, is there? One could simply make a number of "pledges" in favor of a particular candidate or proposition directly, and the candidate or proposition with the most "pledges" wins, replacing the earlier notion that the candidate or proposition with the most money behind it wins.
The next obvious simplification then would be to have a special day, call it "pledging day". We could put "pledge" machines in every community, give people a few hours off work, and everyone can go to a nearby location and "pledge". In the evenings people could gather and have parties while the "pledges" are counted to see which candidates or propositions gathered the most "money", thereby winning their races. And with all that it could be done without the time-consuming need to gather actual money, or the expensive waste of gathering and spending actual money, surely a win-win for all political parties and the community of pledgers as well.
I can see that there's a potential problem with ensuring that wealthy people and corporations get to make enough pledges, but that's no doubt a perennial conversation in the ongoing great experiment called democracy.
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on Thursday, 30 September 2010 at 04.19
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I like it.
I would like to note that Barrack's presidential campaign was a big time spending spree.
on Thursday, 30 September 2010 at 12.04
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Indeed it was. Fortunately McCain spent only $104 and Sarah Palin wore only thrift-shop clothing that she bought herself.
This is why I've been thinking of campaigning myself and trying to spend less than, say, $104 myself. It seems there's way to much hysteria about money, and about what money can and should and might do, and that the whole process would be better off without it. (Does this make me fiscally responsible yet?)