Post-Peak Liberal: Finally!

Post-Peak Liberal

....... Life on the Downslope

Finally!

Well, we made it. Tomorrow is finally the day. I feel like we should all get some kind of special bonus, no matter who wins, for sitting through these many months of campaigning. And certainly, those who are able to should treat themselves to a really nice beer or wine or scotch tomorrow night. You deserve it.

We might have some cause to believe that this Presidential cycle was relatively unusual in its dramatically early start. Why? Well, first of all, there was the surging unpopularity of the Bush administration. Very early on, it became evident that Bush had no real plans except to bankrupt the country and shred the Constitution. So Democrats were salivating early about the prospect of running against a Bush third term. And while Obama has run a very good campaign, obviously much of this election is comprised of anti-Bush sentiment that was cemented in place years ago. Also, most of the grueling length of this campaign was driven by Obama himself. He had multiple historic tasks to accomplish. He had to overcome a lot of latent and not-so-latent American racism. He had to defeat a Clinton political machine that seemed unstoppable. He had to deal with the thinness of his own national resume. And then he had to actually go out and beat a Republican candidate, running the gauntlet of right-wing smear tactics, mainstream media laziness, and general public ignorance of actual facts. To do all this, Obama had to start early. He had to raise a lot of money over a long period of time. And the sheer duration of his campaign itself kept him in the public eye for months on end, providing a kind of substitute track record of national experience that transcended his actual short time in.

I don't see these factors coalescing again for the next election cycle. Even if Obama is absolutely horrible in his first couple years as President (I'm assuming a healthy Obama win tomorrow, just to infuriate all those who are still nervous about the outcome), the GOP hopefuls for 2012 will not need to start campaigning two years ahead of time. First, it's not likely that the Republicans will want someone with a thin national resume, especially if Obama struggles and the country sinks further into the Long Emergency. The GOP will want a proven commodity, a sober statesman or businessperson to right the ship; and that person will not need to pimp their name in the national spotlight just to raise their profile. Also, if the Republicans go down in contests all over the nation tomorrow, as it now seems they will, then they will need to take a whole new approach to rebuilding their party --an over-focus on a Presidential candidate for two solid years before the next election will just not be the right tactic. They will need to totally reexamine their main strategies since Nixon, the culture war against liberals and the uneasy coalition between religious fundamentalists and the oil/military industry elite. The new GOP will need to get real about helping out the poor and lower middle class, since those segments will likely make up most of the population by 2010 or so. And at some point, Republicans will need to purge their party of the baseline assumption that the Rapture is immanent, which renders environmental concerns irrelevant and Middle East war desirable. We are all "Left Behind" together in this, so the GOP needs to get on board with some serious plans for the future.

So mercifully, we will likely be spared the same eternal Presidential campaign next time around. But let's take a moment to reflect, on this Election Eve, about the major dysfunctions of our entire electoral machinery. What kinds of things really need to be done to make things better permanently?

Instant Runoff Voting -- A friend recently reminded me that this might be the easiest major change to implement, the most bang for the buck. This mechanism allows voters to rank the candidates in descending preference, and lower-ranked choices kick in if no candidate reaches a majority of first place votes. The biggest effect here is that people can vote for third party candidates and not "spoil" anything. More third party candidates would also certainly get elected in Congressional races. General campaigning would be less acrimonious, as the major party candidates would need to seek coalitions and cooperation with third parties, to ensure that they are capturing as many lower-ranked votes as possible. Existing technology can easily handle IRV right now.
Voting Technology -- Speaking of technology, there really needs to be federal legislation to standardize all voting machines and ballots. Every vote should be counted on a machine that leaves a paper trail, and there must be transparency at all stages of the voting act itself.
Clean Elections (Public Financing) -- It might sound stupid to use public money to finance political campaigns, but as I read recently somewhere in a good blurb, "someone is paying these candidates for their eventual votes anyway, why shouldn't it be the citizens?" We all complain about "Special Interest" influence in politics, but very few want to pony up for Clean Elections to eliminate it. In the two states that have gone for robust Clean Elections in earnest (Arizona and Maine), the corporate/business/lawyer monopoly on state offices has been broken, and regular people of all stripes are getting elected. And these folks have no obligations to vested interests other than the people themselves, since they have not been bought.
Proportional Representation -- Another powerful way to get fresh ideas and third party candidates into the mix would be proportional representation. Instead of winner-take-all congressional districts, which result in obscenely high incumbent re-election rates through gerrymandering, states should divide their congressional territories into multiple representative super-districts, whereby the top 3 or 4 finishers in any given district are ALL elected to Congress. That way, the two major parties can't monopolize the entire electoral landscape, and significant alternative voices can be heard and given actual representation in Congress.
Proportional Allotment of the Electoral College -- (or, just get rid of the whole damn thing). Preferably, the Electoral College should go the way of the dinosaurs, in favor of a straight-up popular vote. However, in deference to the framers' belief in the Senate (which I also think should be abolished as profoundly unfair to populous states), let's assume we need to keep the Electoral College structure for now. The winner-take-all allotment scheme needs to be scrapped in favor of proportional allocation. Currently, only Maine and Nebraska use tiered vote allocation. The winner-take-all allotment scheme makes swing states disproportionately powerful in the whole process, as we all can attest. And with close elections seemingly the way of the future, to have a handful of close swing states decide every election is just an invitation to mischief, vote theft, and every other potential cluster-f under the sun (Florida and Ohio, anyone?). If all of the states moved to proportional allotment of Electoral College votes, then candidates would once again have to craft platforms that appeal to a wide range of voters, and campaigns would have to have broad-based schedules and advertising schemes. The full American public would be pulled back into the political discussion, and minority constituencies in what are currently "safe" states would actually have meaningful votes.
Voting Days -- Even though it would entail a change to the Constitution, voting should be moved to a 3-day period that includes an entire weekend. There is just no earthly reason to have everyone vote on the same day, a work day at that. Even though there are legal protections for voters to guarantee them time off to vote, many people of modest means avoid the polls because of the long lines and subsequent missed work time (lots of people still get paid by the hour, let's not forget). Voting should be a leisurely period, spread out over a few days, and should fall partly on the weekend to give people adequate time to get to the polls. No-brainer. It might be bad for over-hyped TV coverage, but much better for voters.

I'm sure there are other things that could be done, but you get the idea. The two main things that are wrong with the American system are: too much money required for campaigning, and not enough alternative third party voices in the process. These two basic pillars really create all of the other problems. Is there gerrymandering and an incumbent racket? Absolutely, but that's because there are no third party candidates in place to actually change things, because they can't get elected, because of the winner-take-all system and lack of public financing (clean elections). Are voters disenchanted and relatively ignorant of major policy issues? Sure they are. But that's because there has been no historical mechanism to get candidates in office who actually represent their views. Exciting alternative candidates arise all the time: Dennis Kucinich, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader. But these other ways of looking at the issues and at our society as a whole never make it into the realm of actual representation. It is almost impossible to build a mass political movement outside of the two major parties because the electoral mechanics preclude it at every step.

Any of the above measures, if implemented, would help get a tiny toehold for alternative voices. As to which would need to go in first to possibly catalyze the others, I'm not sure. The major parties would resist at every juncture. A few years ago, I would have thought that public financing (Clean Elections) had the most promise. But with the economy and local/state budgets in free fall, I can't see people ponying up for that any time soon. Maybe Instant Runoff Voting would be the most innocuous but potentially game changing tactic.

In any case, enjoy Election Day. Get out there and do your part.