“All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.” Al Smith
Here is an idea that might give us better candidates for President.
In the last election cycle both parties had flawed selection processes for their candidates. And both ended up with flawed candidates. The Republicans primaries were so open that about 15 politicians and a few non politicians entered the race and the winner ended up being an unvetted outsider. The Democratic primaries on the other hand were dominated by superdelegates. Their existence allowed the eventual winner to keep other candidates from even entering the race. Most Americans were not pleased with the choices and many held their noses in the voting booth.
In the meantime on TV shows like: The Voice, Dancing With the Stars and Survivor were evolving a new form of democracy that is more open and more popular than the current primary system of either party. Can this model of a Reality TV Contest be applied to selecting a candidate for President of the USA? I think it can.
Here is one suggestion of how this model could be used to select and publicize a parties candidate.
Start in January of the Presidential election year with an open application on the internet. Anybody who wants to be a candidates must submit a three minute video stating their qualifications and in broad terms their domestic and foreign policy objectives.
Allow a few weeks of voting online to select about 20 candidates. People with a preexisting constituency would have a competitive advantage.
The weekly TV show would run about two hours and would feature the candidates at locations addressing issues of importance to voters. Each week one or two would be eliminated by the vote of the audience.
Issues might include: experience, homelessness, the military, taxes, education, public land, the judiciary, veterans and more.
It may be that the people who voted would accumulate additional votes for later rounds. It may be that it would need to start regionally. It may need to be tried for selecting a governor first.
What I’m saying is that the system we had isn’t working (why does New Hampshire go first?) and there is a TV model that does seem to be working, albeit for selecting much less important positions, maybe we should try it.
The show might get phenomenal rating and we could end up with an experienced centrist candidate.