3x Thursday: Politicking

Thanks once again to Missy:

1. Even tho it's been postponed, how do you feel about the CA recall election?
   I have no problem with the idea of recall elections, but I do think that Davis' opponents should have had to make a better case to get the movement off the ground. Recalls should be reserved for egregious actions like going against campaign promises. Now the thing has turned into a 3-ring circus and in the end it will do very little to help California dig itself out of the hole it's in.
2. Are recall elections a good thing? Why/Why not? What about a presidential recall election?
   See above. Recalls, in my opinion, become more valuable as the term of the office is extended. Recalling House reps would be futile as they're only there for 2 years anyway, but the Senate term is 6 years so there could be a real benefit to recalling a senator that no longer represents his constituency. Presidential recall? The cost would be way to prohibitive to make this worthwhile.
3. Should celebrities be allowed to run for office? Does their fame make them good candidates?
   Anyone who's qualified to run for office should be able to, and the only qualifications that I feel that are important are residency status and age. Celebrities, especially in recent years, seem to think their fame is a reason for us to listen to their political views, but in the end if they don't have the popular view they don't make good candidates. Jesse Ventura used his fame and his position as a government outsider (yes he was Mayor of his town for two terms, but nothing else) to counter-balance the Republican and Democratic candidates. In the end, a lot of Minnesota voters picked him because they recognized his name and were tired of the same old politics.

Bonus: If you could pick one thing that's wrong with politics today, what is it, and how would you fix it?
The rampant problems with campaign finance. First and foremost I would remove any party's ability to raise funds. Instead, voters can contribute to a campaign fund that is then distributed equally to each party based on the number of candidates running for office. Individual campaigns will still be able to raise money, but they will only receive X amount of dollars from the party. This would basically remove any advantage the Republicans and Democrats have over the "third parties". The 2 majors won't be able to just simply dump money into a campaign they feel they need to win.

On another note, this is the 100th post to the main blog. Only took 3 years!

Comments

Posted by: missy at September 18, 2003 2:58 PM

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