thoughts for a post campaign world

So I wrote this Monday and have been too lazy to post it. I haven't re-read it or edited it or it would never get posted so here is my take on fixing our political system warts and all.

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Since it has been impossible to escape, I have been thinking a lot about elections lately. There are so many things that piss me off about our elections that I have been brainstorming ways to make it better. So here are my thoughts broken into 2 parts—voting and campaigns—on how we should change this massive pain in the ass that happens every 4 years with a minor pain in the ass in the middle (BTW if you don’t agree, let’s see if you have any better ideas).

Voting:

1. Federal election laws not state election laws!!! I think that congress should set standards that every state needs to follow. Everything from registration rules, poll times, number of precincts, and type of ballot (whether paper or electronic) should be the same everywhere. Now I think there could be room for states to tweak things (if the polls should be open from 7am-8pm and your state wants to be open longer then you go for it), but a minimum needs to be set.
2. If you have a state issued ID card or Driver’s license then you should be registered to vote in your state (and not to be all big brother but really everyone should have an official ID). This kind of feeds into the first one but it is important enough to be called out in my opinion. This would make it that much easier for everyone to vote and to help to eliminate the need for voter registration drives (and voter registration fraud—note not actual voter fraud).
3. Change Election Day to a Monday and make it a national holiday so no one has to work.

Campaigns:

1. Debates – Having 3-4 debates that try to cram in as many topics as possible in such a limited time or having some bogus town hall format where “undecided” voters get to ask lame questions was proven once again to be almost completely worthless. How about we have a series of moderated debates (maybe 5-6) that are each on one specific topic (economy, health care, foreign policy, etc). This would allow the candidates to go into greater detail and hopefully make the campaign more about issues than personality.
2. Show us the goods – instead of these sorts of vague policy positions, I think the candidates should have to draft their top legislative priorities (5, 10, or maybe to match the debate topics) and actually draft the legislation they would submit to congress upon getting elected. Of course this doesn’t mean congress would pass the bills but at least we can truly evaluate their positions and priorities.
3. Campaign Spending – some people are concerned with just how much Obama raised this year, and if you aren’t you should be (imagine a candidate you hate with that much of a monetary advantage). I think candidates should be forced to use public financing. This will limit the amount spent and maybe make it a little fairer. And no, I haven’t figured out how to handle the primary season but one option could be:
4. Hold the conventions earlier. Then if one party picks a nominee first there will be less time that they could use money raised during primary season to attack the other party’s potential nominees
5. Infomercials for all – as another part of limiting money spent on campaigns, I think all major party candidates should get a half hour infomercial with the party in power getting to go last (kind of like making them the home team). Also give them an equal amount of time for commercials and such, but they can decide when they want to place them to best reach their core demographics. I mean the FCC should be able to make this an issue of “the public good” and force the broadcast stations to do this.
6. Fix the primary/caucus season mayhem – I really believe that 2 states that don’t reflect the demographic make up of the country shouldn’t have so much sat in our political process. Why not have the parties separately or together have some sort of drawing for the order. You can decide how many states get to have a primary each week starting in Jan and then randomly draw names for the order each election. This allows for any state to potentially have a major say in who the nominees and ultimately the president might be.

That’s all I have right now but I’m sure I could come up with a million more. And no I’m not sure how to scale this to local races or how to limit outside groups having their say but you have to start somewhere right?

And yes I know some people will say this infringes free political speech and to that I say bullshit. No one is limiting WHAT you can say just how much money you have to say it.

What you have a better idea? Then let’s here it!

Domestic Terrorist Attack Foiled

In Austin yesterday an explosive device was discovered packed with nails. Federal officials will be joining the investigation.

Until next time and the problem with Democrats

All right...I am a little late on this as I wasn't sure if I was going to mention it but what the hell.

I planned a little date night for April 8th and it was a ton of fun.

WE went to Adelita's on Central for some Mexican which was a little mixed. I liked my dish but L was not so enamored with her seafood burrito, though she didn't mind bringing it for leftovers so it couldn't have been too bad. Apparently it is owned by the same people who own Chiapas across the street, but they are intending to make it a touch more upscale than that.

Afterwards we went to the Mexican bakery and grabbed a couple deserts for later (again L struck out by discovering she does not like flan).

Then finally we were off to the main event of the evening the season finale of the Electric Arc Radio Show. The show was really good as always and the New Standards were pretty good, though I thought their arrangement of London Calling could have been a little more original (a very minor complaint though).

This brings me to my complaint about Democrats. They had a special guest at the show and it was Al Franken. He came out at the end and talked a little and it was a very underwhelming experience. I would like to point out that up until now I have been very excited to see what he was going to bring to the race for senate in '08 as I respect a lot of his views on issues.

Unfortunately he did not live up to my expectations at all. He seemed uncomfortable with the whole politician shtick and most of what he had to say was about Democrats doing this and Democrats doing that and we need to get Democrats into this office and that one.

I'm sorry but just electing card-carrying Democrats isn't the solution to all the issues in our country. Democrats don't come pre-loaded with all the answers and frequently make dumb mistakes too.

I guess that what I want from my politicians are answers. I want to know what they think can be done to fix things and even what they think needs fixing. All in all Franken is going to have to do a lot more now to get me to give him my vote.

MPLS Transit Plan

I found out about the new MPLS transit plan the night before the first public comment meeting and didn't have a chance to check it out until a day or 2 later.

Needless to say I am not thrilled at all on a couple of the plans. A lot of it does make sense but I think the biking situation must have been done by people who never bike downtown.

The worst of it being the plan for Hennepin Ave. Basically they want to make it a 2-way street and have bike lanes in the middle. This is such a bad dangerous idea that I cannot believe it is in the final plan. People already don't pay attention to bikes in the Henn ave bike lane, but this will be much worse. I just see people thinking it is a turn lane or not looking before turning and I am betting that car-bike accidents would increase dramatically due to it.

There are some good things like making a better connection from the Cedar Lake Trail to the river road but all in all I hope they reconsider the bike lane in the middle of two way traffic.

Islamic State of Iraq cont'd

In todays' Strib, Michele Bachmann has an editorial clarifying her position and statements from the interview that caused the drama last week.

In it she discusses separate statements by militants in Iraq claiming to be part of Al-Qaeda and also by the leader of the Iranian Guardian Council heralding the coming of the "Islamic State of Iraq." This then is what she so ineloquently tried to explain in her interview.

I do appreciate her trying to explain her remarks, although I would say that if she mangles her positions this badly when she doesn't have the time and staff to write them, she might want to work on those interview skills a little bit.

Now I do have some issues with her interpretations however (all emphasis mine).

First she says:

Rather, I meant that America's adversaries are in agreement that a divided Iraq benefits their objective to expel America from the region, resulting in Iraq being a safe haven for terrorists.

and she then quotes an Reuters news article saying:

"[A]n Iraqi militant group led by al-Qaeda has called for a separate Islamic state in Baghdad and other areas with a large Sunni Arab population, according to a video posted on the Internet on Sunday."

she then adds:

That same year, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who leads the Iranian Guardian Council, hailed the coming of the "Islamic State of Iraq," believing that the Islamic revolution that had begun in Shia Iran was being exported to Iraq.

This would lead one to believe that the groups that our troops are fighting in Iraq are working together and have a shared objective. However anyone with a little bit of knowledge might notice that the two groups speaking of an Islamic state are Sunni and Shia.

Aren't these the two groups that are currently killing each other when they aren't killing our troops?

I could be wrong but I don't see them collaborating and if they did somehow manage to create the Sunni Islamic Iraq, and the Shiite Islamic Iraq wouldn't they probably be fighting each other.

And let's add that if we are all pro-democracy and against religious based nations, then when are we going to invade Saudi Arabia?

The best we could do was this?

I really hope that the 6th district is happy with itself. Of course the DFL is also to blame for nominating such a lackluster candidate as Patty Wetterling, but seriously people Michelle Bachman has gone over the edge.

“Iran is the trouble maker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided that they’re going to partition Iraq.

And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called…. the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be the training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made.

They are going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a terrorist safe haven zone where they can go ahead and bring about more terrorist attacks in the Middle East region and then to come against the United States because we are their avowed enemy.” (emphasis mine)

Now I will be the first to say that if she can back this up with some hard intelligence then I will gladly eat boiled crow, but I just don't see it. This kind of fantastic imagination is fine from those on the outskirts of the discussion, but from those who are elected to help run this country it is unacceptable.

And just a quick note before I get flamed by anyone. Remember when Mark Dayton closed his office in DC because of terrorist threat intelligence but NO ONE ELSE DID? How much was he mocked by the right (and some on the left)? He should have been mocked it was ridiculous and so is this.

been a long time

been a little while since I have written, but having flu for the better part of a week will do that to you.

Here's a couple things I've been reading to pass the time once I could concentrate on the computer screen for more than a couple minutes (also check out parts 1 and 2 of the Harper's piece). the whole Iran thing is a little scary, but I do feel that we probably aren't on a direct path to wars, but with our 2 leaders anything could accidentally happen.

on a more on topic mode, I got the What It Is box set for Valentine's Day. Will try to write more on that later.