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Originally Posted by samcol
I really don't think it's arrogant to say that most Americans aren't capable of thinking for themselves. If they could, we wouldn't be in this situation. Clearly, they are incapble of voting out corruption and looking past ad campaign ads. Have you ever seen those news casts where most American's can't even find Iraq on a map?
What do you of the idea of removing the 17th amendment? Now instead of buying and paying for a senator to get your agenda through, you now have you buy entire state legislatures to get your guy in office. This would take our 2 house system back to how it was intended. One house that represents the population (the House), and one that represents the States (the Senate).
Lets face it senators don't get elected, they get chosen by corporations and posted on TV and billboards. The fickle mob votes for them. Give the power back to the democratically elected state legislatures who are looking out for the best intrest of their state to pick our senators. Repealing the 17th amendment would cut out huge portions of special intrest groups and the need for campaign money.
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I truly disagree, I believe in the people. Although, I do admit my accusation of arrogant is a bit harsher than need be.
I feel that unfortunately, for whatever reason we do not get true leaders to run for Senate. Most are career politicians (and some are truly good and do what is right but those are the rare ones).
I think corporations and media can get away with choosing who gets noticed because we have such weak leaders, not people voting.
I would argue that someone qualified and intelligent enough that truly went on an in state campaign trail and went from city to city and debated issues and listened to voters would get elected no matter how much money he put into media. The media would have to take notice of this man and give him air time regardless.
I believe that the one problem in deregulating the media and allowing corporations to own every media outlet in town and the state is dangerous. I think we need local ownership on local media. If not that at the very least regulations of equal time for ALL candidates not just the ones who can afford it.
When in a presidential election year, the networks profits rise dramatically because of the political ads, something is wrong. Because that sends the message that only those with the funding will ever be able to get their name out. That is the problem, not the voters intelligence.
The voters can only vote for whom the state has on the ballot (yes, you can have write-ins but again, you need the coverage to get a majority to do so).
I believe the fact that the majority vote not party lines but for whom they believe will do the best job on the list in front of them, in most cases.
In the end, I think taking away the right to vote for the Senators is not truly fixing the problem, instead you are creating cronyism, the oppurtunity for 1 party to truly take control, and the biggest problem with it is you are taking away some of the people's voice, enough of a voice that it could be truly damaging to the nation as a whole.
No, you need to fix the problem once and for all and the only way to do that is guaranteed equal time that is not dependant on ad monies.
In all honesty, if I ran for senate, what I would do is take every weekend I had off (for 2 years straight) and go from Ohio town to Ohio town and campaign my ass off. I would print up as many fliers as I could on my printer and hand them out, I would get volunteers who believed in me to work the phones, and to get my message out in every way possible. I would make sure people knew who I was, what I stood for and felt that they had a voice in my platform and in the office I was running for.
Someone who does that and has the right combination in his platform, IMHO would get elected in a landslide. Because the people are crying for it, they need and want a leader they can believe in.
Another problem is the states and the DEM/GOP control.... in Ohio the 2 leading parties AUTOMATICALLY get to put a name on the ballot (they have to have a token petition, but it's not nearly the same amount of sigs an independant would need) everyone else has to have enough names signed on a petition. In primaries, the incumbant automatically gets put on, the 2 leading parties can list whom they want on, everyone else has to have signed petitions to get on.
While I can see why this is acceptable, it is also detrimental. The good is it makes sure there is a choice, the bad is, the guy on the street campaigning his ass off may not be able to get enough signatures that are allowable, because of the narrow requirements. Good is a petition show that the person stands a chance, the bad is someone may still have a chance but because he/she didn't know all the legalities in the petition process, the petition and signatures are disallowed and therefore he/she doesn't get on the ballot.
The reason the voting is so low is the people have so little to choose from and noone gives them enough to believe in, noone stands out, noone takes the initiative and goes out and works their asses off to get elected. But if someone did....... the polls would show it works.