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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Leaking unclassified information is like stealing a free sample that was offered to you. It's kind of a meaningless concept.
In the wake of the French election I've been thinking a lot about how seriously flawed our Presidential elections are. Besides the EC we also need shorter campaign seasons (this is actually the biggest one to me) campaign finance reforms, and to get rid of FPTP.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas EdisonI'd push for more restrictive moderators at the candidates' debates. Force them to focus on real issues, and not on badmouthing their opponent.
Hell, I'd go one step further and not allow any live video streaming or TV cameras, and just have the debates broadcast over the radio. Modern media has turned it into a beauty pageant where image is everything and substance is nothing.
(This is based on a Pennsylvania law that prohibits TV cameras in courtrooms during a trial. A very good idea, if you ask me. Whenever they talk about some trial on the six o'clock news, they have to show a sketch artist's rendering.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.edited 8th May '17 3:03:49 PM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang![]()
Well, when you're talking about a group that encompasses several million people there's bound to still be statistically important minority. But from my understand of things immigrants in general, neither tend to be school-aged, nor to have school-aged children with them.
And when this is in the context of assuming that most Hispanic children in the Texas public school systems are not citizens, it definitely still stands. The majority of Hispanics in almost all states are native-born and the percentages only go up the younger they are.
edited 8th May '17 3:25:38 PM by LSBK
@Link: I generally agree with "shorter" but the question is how short? We do have a major consideration that many other countries don't have: square mileage. Campaigning across the whole country, even in the era of instant communication, is going to take some time. Couple months at least.
The other thing to consider is primary season. It would probably be more constructive if every state's primaries were held at the same time or at least within the span of a couple weeks. If they are spaced out, votes maybe should be kept secret until the end and something besides FPTP would be needed to deal with the number of candidates.
At least a couple months, to be sure. Primary season makes things difficult, however. I think the length on the general election (July/August to early November) is within the acceptable range but a bit on the long side, it's the primaries that drag on and on for ages and make the entire system an eternal election cycle. iirc up in Canada the last campaign season in a country of similar geographical size to the US was 70-odd days.
on other topics: Vox: Why Democrats should support radically simpler taxes
I don't know how to fix it but the way the US media treats elections (especially the Presidential election) is ridiculous. It's not an election, it's a once-every-four-years Presidential Superbowl. Speculations about candidates for the next election and informal campaigning starts the day after an election. Almost everything that comes out of Washington is framed in terms of how it affects the parties' chances in the next election. The US was somehow able to turn changes of administrations into years-long entertainment.
edited 8th May '17 5:53:31 PM by nightwyrm_zero
Honestly, US elections need two major reforms and one of them (heavy restrictions on donations, and public election funding) is impossible until the SC is liberal enough. The other (dropping the needlessly complicated and extended primary system in favor for a more limited convention selection process) would be branded as "undemocratic", despite the current primary system not exactly being a paragon of electoral fairness (certain states get a bigger say cause they go early, superdelegates, caucuses, etc).
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.![]()
Simply compressing the primary voting to a single set date would go a long way. However the thing is the primary system isn't run by the government so much as it's run by the political parties. On one hand it means a dedicated group would have a shot at reforming them from within (and if one party suceeds and it works the other is likely to follow suit), on the other hand if that doesn't work you'd need to actually go about the process of enshrining a primary system in law; no small feat.
@Primary length: while certain idiosyncracies of Argentine politics mean the election season in Argentina is pretty much 24/7 for the governing party when it's not affiliated with peronism, for everyone else it tends to be about 6-10 months here, because we have what's effectively a three-round system:
- First come the PASO (Primarias Abiertas Simultáneas y Obligatorias, meaning Open Simultaneous Mandatory Primaries): everybody who fulfills the requirements to run participates here. If two or more candidates belong to the same party, the one with most votes of them goes to the general election. Anyone who gets at least 1,5% of the vote can run in the next phase.
- General election: Anyone who passed the PASO competes here. If a candidate reaches 45% or more of the votes, they win. If a candidate is over 40% (but under 45%) and nobody is within 10% of them, they win. In any other situation, there's a final round between the top 2 choices.
- Final round: half+1 votes or more means you're president.
Now, with some adaptations, you could take the PASO system, maybe without the "mandatory" part, and then have the General Election between the top candidates of each party. (basically, you have Dem, GOP, Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Socialist, etc. primaries in every state at the same date and anyone can vote for one candidate out of that entire mess, no matter what is their party affiliation, then you have each party's winner run in November).
That aside, 538: The 7 Signs That Someone Might Be Running For President In 2020
. 538 compiled info for the pre-campaign stuff from 2016 to find patterns in the actions taken by potential candidates and they found seven things that most of them do. According to the data, aside from Trump, the people who're getting ready right now seem to be Biden (has already done (5/7), Sanders, O'Malley and Al Franken (3/7 each).
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Well, there's this The Hill article that's an "everything but the kitchen sink" list of 43 possible Dem candidates for 2020 which counts her as one option
. And the 538 article does mention her in passing.
EDIT:
Exactly.
edited 8th May '17 7:01:19 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
