I've never lived in a swing state before and always envied those folks who got to watch the action up close. So now I'm living in Colorado, a swing state where the measly 9 electoral delegates are hotly contested. It's a weird experience to watch commercial after commercial after commercial, all spilling vitriolic lies (both sides). Literally, there is a Romney commercial followed by an Obama commercial or vice versa all day and night long. If all I knew about the election was what I see on commercials, I wouldn't want to vote for anybody. I truly hate the negativity.
I will tell my idea of a better political system to anyone who will listen. Get rid of the political commercials - just outlaw them. Yeah, I know about the first amendment but, for the public good, we've outlawed cigarette commercials, so why not these nasty political commercials that come very close to making my ears bleed. Once we got rid of political advertising, there would be no need for all of the money that must be raised to feed this monster. Consequently, no favors would be owed to big contributors. Then, set up a series of public debates between the candidates, position papers and whatever other good ideas that come up for a way for a candidate to get his or her ideas across to the voting public without advertising.
It's mind boggling to imagine how much money is being spent on each and every vote here. The whole state only has about five million people, less than metropolitan Atlanta. If you figure the percentage of people who actually vote, I would guess that each side is spending thousands of dollars per vote. This makes no sense. If all of the money donated to political causes could be donated to help our schools, just think of the impact that would have.
While I'm on my soapbox, one other idea. What about one six-year term for the President so the first four years aren't consumed with worries about re-election?
I've been working on registering voters here in Denver. The other day I approached a perfectly normal looking guy to ask if he needed to update his registration. His response: "Why would I do that? Secret societies control the world so voting doesn't matter." Well, I guess that's one point of view. I just hope that the "secret societies" don't start advertising too.
