THIS IS THE FOURTH POST IN THIS SERIES
NEWS FLASH FROM NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE - BOTH HOUSES OF HAWAII HAVE PASSED THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE BILL - To learn more about this just click on the icon in the side bar for National Popular Vote.
Q. Should the ‘playing field’ for all candidates entered in a national election be level when it comes to exposure?
A. Basically, what we are talking about here is MONEY. Here are some of the problems that we, the voting public have with the present system:
1) The mass media for the most part ignores ‘neutrality’, this leaves the viewer with the decision of trying to determine just how factual is the information being put forth. Is it being skewed by whoever is doing the writing or reporting? My guess would be 99% of the people watching a news caste of some kind, would not take it upon themselves to research the validity and the truth of what is being reported.
[ There was a great sound bit (not even called that in those days probably) in the TV Series Gun Smoke when Doc Holiday asked Festus “why don’t you learn to read?” and Festus came right back with this classic “How do you know that the guy that wrote the reading wrote the reading right?”]
People really need to be educated on the fact that what they read in the newspapers or see on TV can be very bias and very slanted and because of that, have to be very careful at not taking things at face value. Many times when you have first hand knowledge of a particular event and then see it reported - you can hardly recognize it because it has been so misreported. (Can you imagine the difference in media coverage today as compared to the 18th Century when our Constitution was written - Do we need some changes? Of course and the writers intend for the Constitution to be updated!)
2) What is the answer to obtaining a level playing field when it comes to candidate expenditure? I am not sure. But what I am sure of is that if we the people want to have an ‘equal’ look at those candidates running for office, something has to be done to bring this about.
He/she who has the most funds at their disposal gets the most advertising, the biggest team in the field, the most media coverage and on and on - this doesn’t give us a balanced look at each candidate. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any mass media telling me who I should vote for.
Bottom line - all candidates should be on a level playing field when it comes to how much money each candidate can spend on campaigning.
Q. How do we get away from ‘professional’ politicians and get fresh, smarter, stronger people with solid morality into the Congress and White House?
A. Term limits is one answer. Many have suggested variations of this but here is one scenario:
1) Limit all U.S. Senators and Representatives to one six year term. Every two years, one third of each of these bodies would rotate so that every six years a complete and fresh change in leadership of our country has taken place. Limit the office of President to one six year term.
2) During the period of time that a Senator or Representative is serving his/her six term, they would not be eligible to run for another office. What a fantastic thing that would be. Right now we have three Senators whom we the taxpayers are paying to be Senators, but who are spending most of their time campagning for the Presidential office, and whom continue to accept their pay as Senators - tell me where anything like this could be accomplished in any other setting?!
There maybe a few negatives to the above scenario, but the positives should far and away outweigh those negatives and make for outstanding leadership of America.
Q. Does the U.S. have a sufficient pool of the right kind of talent to be able to provide and sustain this type of Congressional and Presidential leadership?
A. Absolutely! But in order to tap into that talent, there has to be a big change in what Washington D.C. represents to the majority of us. That is why these changes are so desperately needed. We the people will not get the kind of leadership we want and need because most of these kinds of people will not step into the political and leadership corruptness that exists with our ‘do nothing’ Congress of today.
Q. Some feel that you are leaning to far left with some of the ideas presented in these Posts, what do you say?
A. We are trying not to lean in any direction. We don’t consider these issues as being right, left, Republican or Democrat - just American.
We’ll be back with more Q&A’s. In the meantime you might want to go to our Products page and scroll down to a Book called “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?” and read the excerpts.
Make it a great week.
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