h a l f b a k e r y
Sugar and spice and unfettered insensibility.
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The show would be called "Who Wants to be the President !?".
This would be a TV show that would provide a viable 3rd party candidate.
It would start in an open source forum like this one to narrow down the choices. Anyone can post an essay on who should be the president. Whoever gets the most
buns gets to go to the finals.
The final 50 contestants would go on TV and get voted off one by one by the audience just like on American Idol. You could vote with your phone or by internet.
I think the winner would be tough to beat by the candidates produced by our current outdated system.
There could be unlimited spinoffs of this show. Including:
Who Wants to be Senator?
Who Wants to be Secretary of Energy?
Who Wants to be White House Custodian?
The best part of all of this is that it is virtually free and we would get exactly the type of government that we deserve. Now that’s a spicy democracy.
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I misread this as "Dramatically Elected
President" - I thought he'd jump out of
a cake or something. |
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I was all ready to fishbone until the last paragraph. You really have a point there. |
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I'm not sure I want a government that we all 'deserve' - though the idea of having amatuer presidents/prime ministers does appeal, I worry that even the likes of Simon Cowel would be able to avoid the obvious pressures that outside influences might let sway on what would otherwise be a great idea. Cyncial perhaps, but not much. We'd be electing personalities certainly, and I'm not so sure I want to see more of that. Which brings me back to the idea of having a president 'that we deserve' <cold shiver> |
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Sorry to add cold water but it would be too easy to hack... Oh wait a minute, we already have that problem, don't we? |
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i've been told this was tried on hbo -
unfortunately, in america, there are
rules about raising money that would
prevent it. |
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oh, and the guy who won apparently
didn't run. |
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An addition of a 'Simon' would be nice. It would be interesting to have them face the most difficult collective of examiners we could conjure up. |
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The campaign funding issue would be moot. As I understand it, electoral funding laws require candidates to disclose any donation over $2000? |
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This would be paid for in premium service 'phone charges. $1 at a time. |
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With the increase in reality shows being funded this way there is no reason to expect political processes will definitely remain immune. |
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Hell, it could be that your cost of voting is tax deductible, up to the cost of however many rounds of voting in which you participate. For example: |
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Round 1. Everyone who wants to, be a candidate, or nominate a candidate, phones in details. $1/nomination
Round 2. Nominees for each district are selected, by popular vote, after a televised list of candidates put forward their case, in groups of twenty, each Saturday night. Winners of each episode advance to Round 3.$1/vote
Round 3. See Round 2. Same process. $1/vote
Round 4. As for Round 3, if necessary. $1/vote
Round 5. The actual election. $1/vote |
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The same process could be applied to Senate and Presidential elections. |
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Net cost? Around $20/voter, maximum.
Upside? It's funded by the voters. If they vote 200 times, from different phone numbers, for their favourite candidate then they lose that money. If their number comes up more times than the number of eligible voters in their household then their second/third...etc. vote is annulled. |
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As [RF] says. Making the final group of candidates face a panel of expert critics would be the entertaining bit. |
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The key here is the "openness" at the start, and the "fair" competition in narrowing it down. Once you do this for powerful positions, I can see the moneyed interests pushing their candidates pretty much the same way they do now. Or, are you saying that there can be NO ads for (or against) candidates, under severe penalties, by the candidate, their supporters, 3rd parties, bloggers, etc? |
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In other words, imagine if Halliburton, Shell Oil, the CIA, and the Bush crime family all did not want an American idol candidate to win. Would they? |
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I think [UnaBubba] sums it up. |
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Or in the alleged words of the Beatles - |
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"Unabubba's dead, man, miss him, miss him"... |
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