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Okay, Manx. I had a similar idea in my head when I was trying to envision what everybody was talking about. The point I was trying to make was that disallowing the politicians from participating in the campaigning would not make the majority of people start thinking critically about the issues if they weren't already. To me, that mentality amounts to a popularity contest no matter what the politicians are actually doing. I'm also very confident in (a) the lobbyists' ability to sneak campaigning into the regular media, and (b) their dedication to politicians who will act in their best interests even without all that campaign money directly exchanging hands. I am far less confident (in fact, I am the opposite of confident) that the many people who do not take elections seriously enough to begin with will start to be very diligent about reading those campaign-free written responses you propose and listening to the radio debates. I guess I don't have much faith in the adaptability of the majority of people, or rather that I have a lot of faith in human stupidity.
Anyway, that system you propose sounds like something that would be entirely worthwhile, though I am obviously skeptical about it resulting in a paradigm shift. When I think of paradigm shifts, I see a snowball of after-effects in the same vein of the catalyst event. This system only says 'efficiency' to me, and no sweeping after-effects come to mind. Do you really think the lobby wouldn't just get a lot sneakier?
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"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)
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