Michael Jay Lissner

Excess Elections Spending

2008-10-29T14:16:35-07:00

We’re just about to the line here with the election, and I, for one, am really looking forward to a phone that stops ringing, to my mail carrier’s back feeling better, and to my inbox devoid of political emails.

Really, things have gotten out of control. In an article by the AP today, the Republicans said that they were going to:

“…send out over 200 million pieces of mail and have over a quarter of a billion contacts, counting the mail, the phones and the door knocks,”

According to the 2000 census, there are about 227 million people in the US over the age 18. What that means is that if ONLY the republican party ONLY contacted me regarding the presidential race, they would still do so more than one time.

Unfortunately, both parties contact me at all levels of government from city to county to state to federal. And they both do it for each candidate, and every measure. Often they do it more than once.

Are there any numbers totalling the cost of elections nationwide? I’d be interested in seeing such a thing. What else could we buy with that amount of money?

I Just Heard About This

2008-07-19T20:22:52-07:00

I just learned about this, but it’s pretty shocking so I thought I would post it. Apparently a few years ago, Bush said that he uses “The Google”.

Observe:

That’s pretty bad. He’s the president. From this clip, it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t use the internet. It would probably be a useful tool for his line of work.

In a similar vein, McCain said, “Well, basically, it’s a Google. You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It’s remarkable, you know.” Emphasis mine.

He also says, “I am a [computer] illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.”

Observe here.

This is really, really sad. Is there ANY job for which you would deliberately hire somebody that professes internet and computer illiteracy?

Shocking.

Dear Hillary

2008-05-20T21:06:22-07:00

Dear Hillary,

It seems you have lost the contest, and it’s time that you accept that fact. I won’t say you ran a good race, but you really did put one heck of a lot of effort. By my count though, there are 313 delegates remaining. Obama needs to get 72 of them. You need 243.

I think it’s time to throw in the towel, and - dare I say it - move on. Please?

Top Five Problems with Major American Elections

2008-01-20T13:04:07-08:00

I’ve been thinking about elections a lot lately (even before that last post), and I’ve come up with five things that are simply broken about democracy. Call me a commie or a socialist or something if you must, but I challenge you to identify why these are not critical flaws with our system.

Number 1 - Money It’s long been known that it’s expensive to run for any political position, but how much does it really cost? Well, as of January 9, this article says that Hillary has raised about 24 million bucks. That’s pretty darned impressive, but let’s take a moment to think about that. Nobody gives money for nothing, so the way I like to think about it is to say that she is 24 million dollars in debt. If she wins, she’ll need to get that money back to those companies/people, and will probably do something to make that happen. Kind of like the current administration did for Halliburton, except more democratic. So we have a new president that has biases on their very first day. Great. My solution to this is a very simple concept: publicly funded elections. I know it sounds expensive, but it serves two purposes. The first is that it allows politicians that are running for office to focus on their current jobs, rather than focusing on raising money. The second is that it levels the playing field for third parties (see number 2 below) while creating elected officials without debts to companies. What a concept!

Number 2 - No Third Party This one is obvious. Does anybody vote green or independent (or other) outside of strongly democratic states? Is there a third party? No, not really, which means that it’s either democrat or republican, i.e. status quo.

Number 3 - Nobody Knows Their Candidate It’s a fact. There is so much hype around elections that pretty much everybody, including those who follow these things pretty closely don’t know what their candidate stands for. What it comes down to for the democratic primary is, “Black or woman?” In the case of the republican primary it’s “Military guy or mormon?” That is not how the fate of the world (voting for president) should be decided, but I bet it’s about what it’s coming down to. I recently was shown a site called glassbooth.com, which asks you some questions about your opinions on issues, and then tells you how to vote so you get a candidate that agrees with your opinions. Doesn’t that make more sense? Can’t we have that when we vote for president?

Number 4 - State Electorate System…Broken. Shall we face it yet that having our vote broken up by state electorate points doesn’t make much sense? Why should our votes be broken up by artificial lines in the sand? It doesn’t pass the logic test if you ask me. For example, there was a recent measure in California to redistrict the state, thus allowing a more accurate split of its points. That makes sense, but why not just do away with the whole outdated system altogether? It’s time, isn’t it?

Number 5 - Voter Ignorance/Impossibly Complicated Issues I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know what most of the candidates stand for on an issue by issue basis (see number three above). I think I have some idea, but that’s only after studying up, and I still feel kind of ignorant on much of it. Think about this squirrelly question: is a tax break good for the economy? How much of the population knows enough economics to understand this issue? Maybe one percent, and probably more like one percent of one percent. Yet, all of the population votes on the issue, and most of it votes depending on who has the greater advertising money, and thus the more convincing ads. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s not a winning concept, and it can be expanded to other issues, such as stem cells, wire tapping, money for schools, etc.

Howard Zinn on “The Use and Abuse of History”

2008-01-19T00:29:03-08:00

I’ve been reading some excellent stuff by Howard Zinn of late. I’ve tried three times now to read his most excellent People’s History of the United States, but I have always failed for one reason or another. I guess it’s just too dense for everyday, casual reading. This time however, I stumbled upon a much more readable book by him, Passionate Declarations. It’s tying in rather well with some thoughts I’ve been having about our electorate system, so I thought I would post a quick quote from it to share the wealth:

What sorts of values and ideals are encouraged in the young people of the coming generation by the enormous emphasis on the Founding Fathers and the presidents? It seems to me that the result is the creation of dependency on powerful political figures to solve our problems.

We were being exploited by England? Well, the Founding Fathers took care of that in leading the struggle for independence. Was the nation morally blighted by the existence of 4 million black slaves? Abraham Lincoln solved that with the Emancipation Proclamation. Did we have a terrible economic crisis in the early 1930s? Franklin Roosevelt got us out of that one. Do we face enormous problems today? Well, the solution is to find the right president, to go to the polls and choose either the Republican or Democratic candidate.

Consider how much attention is given in historical writing to military affairs—to wars and battles—and how many of our heroes are military heroes. And consider also how little attention is given to antiwar movements and to those who struggled against the idiocy of war.

…

As a result of omitting, or downplaying, the importance of social movements of the people in our history…a fundamental principle of democracy is undermined: the principle that it is the citizenry, rather than the government, that is the ultimate source of power and the locomotive that pulls the train of government in the direction of equality and justice. Such histories create a passive and subordinate citizenry.

I don’t think I could put it much better than that, but in related news, I completed the first round of election pollster training today. Come February 5, I shall be a clerk of the polls (for better or worse).