Tag Archives: campaign financing

November 3, 2020

14 Replies

November 3, 2020

We’re all on tenterhooks, watching and waiting.
We’re tired of tirades. We’re tired of debating.
All of our liberties turned inside out.
What was once done in peace has turned into a bout.
They storm and they threaten and set up false boxes—
the eagle of freedom brought down by vile foxes.

We can’t vouch for our system when so much goes wrong—
when our national anthem’s drowned out by a throng
of those who think that because they are white,
they are superior and have the right
to put down minorities and to change facts,
their white supremacy pardoning the acts

of looting and burning and intimidation.
These acts being staged with no trepidation
thanks to the POTUS who sits calmly by
and approves of it all from his perch in the sky.
We anticipate violence—fear it’s the ones
sowing disorder who have all the guns.

What is the solution? To arm everyone
and have a big shootout when voting is done?
Increasingly, I fear our cyber connection
has been both a bane and a lethal infection.
The villains know how to make use of it
to foment disaster and cause a big fit.

It reaches out hands to enter our homes.
It slashes and pierces and rabidly foams.
Hiding its poison in all of the cracks—
in viruses, malicious websites and hacks.
Turn out the villains, then work on the system
that welcomed them in and pampered and kissed ’em.

Our system of governance was made to be changed,
lest it be exploited by the deranged.
Enact campaign finance and firearms control,
then stem the electoral college’s role.
Time-worn practices need doing in,
for the robes of liberty have grown too thin.

Threadbare and tattered, she quakes at the blast
of self-serving politicians that tear at the past.

Prompt words today are tenterhooks, anticipate, storm and vouch. Image by Peggy Zinn on Unsplash. Used with permission.

                                      The Three Stooges and National Campaign Reform

th
If I could change one thing about my country, it would be the national campaign and campaign financing process!  The three ring circus that now exists is anything but fun.  The posturing, lies, mud-slinging and character defamation (and recently the presidential candidates themselves) are more reminiscent of the Three Stooges than of the dignified performances that it seems should be called for on the part of those who are going to run our country and determine our futures.

I would like to see a system where presidential candidates are allowed to campaign for four months only.  This would be done during a series of twice weekly debates and interviews run by a non-partial panel of interviewers who ask questions on key issues.

Each candidate would also be afforded so much space in newspapers per week but the articles would also be written by nonpartial journalists.  Biographies of candidates would be written, again, by third parties who have no stake in election results.

The biggest change might be to totally outlaw campaign financing and instead to set up a common fund for candidates and to provide equal time for all of the leading candidates that would be provided by the networks and individual newspapers and national magazines. An additional advantage to this banning of campaign financing is that it might curb influence-peddling and graft and corruption in voting.  Perhaps we could get out of the power clutch of big business and again make our government one by the people, of the people and for the people rather than one serving the interests of mainly the powerful and wealthy.

This may sound idealistic, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to base your votes on real information rather than theatrics, mud-slinging and character defamation?  Perhaps if candidates were limited in the time they were given they would use that time to confront the real issues.

I don’t know how mailings and internet contact of private citizens could be regulated without impinging on the rights of free speech, as it would be a dangerous precedent to limit mention of candidates on various social platforms, but perhaps someone else could figure out some way to stop the current slander and libel and cruel character assassinations that occur on the internet.  If not, at least we could encourage our government leaders not to serve as the patterns for such behavior.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Fun Platform.” If you were the new leader of your country and had the chance to transform something that’s currently an annoyance (or worse) into a very fun activity, what would it be? How would you go about the change, and why would you choose that particular thing?