Here Comes The Election

 The rapid approach of another national election brings to light many of the problems within the American political system. Our President, who has only been marginally effective for three years, loses all effectiveness for his last year of this term because of his focus on winning an additional term. I understand that some very popular decisions may come out of the Oval Office this year, but “popular” is not the same as “right” or “best”. Much of what is said and done by the President for the next several months will be geared toward getting re-elected as opposed to serving the best interest of the American people; while at the same time shoring up his defenses against an increasingly antagonistic Republican Party.

The biggest problem with the constant attacks of the Republicans is that they aren't each attacking the same target. Instead of finding a common goal and uniting to achieve it, all of the supposedly conservative candidates are spending every waking moment beating the hell out of each other for the right to be on the presidential ballot. Now, maybe I'm just an uneducated redneck, but if none of them can create an agenda that their own party can rally around what makes any of them think that they should be President?

Seriously.

The primary function of the Presidential Office is to represent the United States to the rest of the world, yet the right to sit in that office is being won or lost over who can yell the loudest and wave the most money around. Are these really the people we want to choose from? A lackluster President and a crowd of backstabbing cat-fighters? Please, tell me there is another choice.

There is another choice.

I remember an old Richard Pryor movie called Brewster's Millions. I won't go into the whole plot, but the climax came when Pryor's character had to tell the public, “I didn't want to get elected. I wanted to show everyone that they had a choice”. (My Paraphrase) The idea was that the choices on the ballot were so bad that Brewster ran on the platform, “None Of The Above”, but then found himself about to win the election when all he really wanted was for people to vote “None Of The Above”.

This coming November we will have the same opportunity. If we are truly dissatisfied with a system that gives us such poor choices in leadership we can each choose to vote for someone who is neither Republican nor Democrat. You see, in a political system that is dominated by two parties, any vote cast for a “third party” candidate is a vote for “None Of The Above”.

Someone may ask, “What's the point? If I vote for a candidate who has no chance of winning I just wasted my vote.” Nothing can be farther from the truth. If the winner on November 2^nd takes the election with only 41% of the popular vote because 20% of the people chose “None Of The Above”, a huge point will have been made. It will be very clear at that time that the man taking the Oath of Office does not come close to representing the majority of Americans. In fact it will say a lot that so many people would “waste” their vote as opposed to taking part in the sham we call a Two Party System. If a fifth of the voting population were to choose to vote for anyone who doesn't come from one of the two major parties those parties would have to wake up to the idea that they are representing themselves more than they are the American people.

Of course, this won't give us a better President this year, but what about in four years? It's possible that someone, somewhere might start listening to what the average man on the street thinks. Maybe someone will start to look at what is best for the nation as a whole instead of what is best for this group or that group. Maybe (I know, it's just a fantasy), maybe an “average” person could actually make a serious run for office. Then we could vote for someone other than an inflated bag of ego with deep pockets without “wasting” our votes. Wouldn't that be something?

What a dream.

I know that the choice that some folks will make is to simply drop out by not voting at all. They don't like the choices and would feel as though a third party vote is wasted, so they will choose to not vote at all. Here is the problem with that idea. If nobody votes against the system then the winner gets a larger percentage of the votes. You see, if the discontented voters don't vote, the vast majority of the votes will go to a Republican or a Democrat and a high percentage of votes for the winner gives the impression that he is who the people want in office. If the end result of this election is going to be one of our current choices, I would rather see the President go into office knowing that most of us don't want him there. Has a President ever started his term with a negative popularity poll? Ouch!

Like I said before, this approach will not fix anything in the immediate future, and I certainly would never try to tell someone else how to vote, but this is the direction I'm heading in: None Of The Above. It may not change anything ever, but it seems better than the alternatives.