The Three Stooges and National Campaign Reform

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?