schweblog

I think just about everyone was sick of the character assassination going on by the time the polls opened in 2004. In lieu of the purported draft dodging and medal throwing, preceded a few years prior by a controversy over oral sex and a president, I think it’s fair to say that our thirst for entertainment in the form of controversy has adequately trumped our desire to see a genuinely qualified person in office. Regardless of your stance, it’s hard to not be sucked into the debates over the past actions of our candidates. While some might argue that character plays just as important a role in leading our country as one’s ideological motivation, I doubt most would argue that the debates over character haven’t taken the front and center position, trumping the (arguably more important) dialogue on the actual issues themselves.

Rather than speculate on extraneous causes for this focus on character in our society, I think that there’s something at the core of our system that turns our elections into a popularity contest. When you go to the polls, you vote for the man. While some may be voting entirely upon a candidate’s ideas, I think it’s fairly likely that several people are voting based upon what they’ve heard–after all, smear ads work. But how does one shift the focus away from the man and towards the ideas he represents? How about changing the entire polling system?

Let’s say, for simplicity’s sake, that there are five issues that concern the American people: healthcare, education, foreign aide, foreign threats, and immigrants’ rights. (Obviously, this is an oversimplification, which is necessary for readability.) Now, among these five issues, there are three possible positions (for example, in healthcare, there are the options of “increasing government spending”, “decreasing government spending”, and “focusing on reform”). Each potential candidate is given 40 points, where they can prioritize their choices among the five issues. One can “blend” points to include…say….7 points in “decreasing government spending” in healthcare, while also putting 5 points into “focusing on reform” in the same category. This would also result in them having to take points from other priorities in other issues, as they are limited to 40 points across five issues. Voters would have the same amount of points and would match them up according to their priorities; the candidate with the closest match to the general public at large would be brought into office.

While admittedly oversimplified, you could reasonably implement this. While limited in scope (you don’t want pages and pages of issues–or do you?–and you can’t include all issues), it seems more likely to force some ideas to be addressed by candidates that are being swept under the rug or disregarded (welfare, anyone?). The benefits to such a system, over the current alternative, is manifold:

Campaigns shift: Rather than selling themselves, candidates would have to sell ideas and have to talk about the issues that concern them. There would have to be some sort of limitation on speech so that exact choices by candidates aren’t leaked, thus creating an overcomplicated ballot for any given man. The point here is that candidates have to sell ideas to the American public in such a way as to force them to prioritize them and think about them enough to really consider where they want to put their points.

Political parties can still play: To keep the issue sheet manageable, allow each party 10 (or 12 or whatever) number of issues to include. In addition, allow them to submit up to 3 options for each choice. Thus, you would hypothetically have 24 issues, with a potential of 6 choices for each issue, to distribute a designated number of points across.

Individuals become obscure: While you could potentially attack your opponent’s background or past by naming off the issues that he’s advocating and encouraging voters to go against that, it seems much more effective to attack his ideas and convince the public that they’re just bad. The individual figure of the politician is effectively removed, outside of being an advocate for such-and-such an issue.

This idea is, admittedly, in its roughest stages. But it seems to be a good way to go about shifting the public focus away from individuals and toward the issues themselves. In doing so, you might actually revive the public’s interest in participation by encouraging thought via a prioritization process. And hey, it’s certainly worth a go, given the pay-to-play “democracy” that we have prancing around American at present.