Phlip fixes our problems with the election

            2012, an election year…

As it is an election year, it was ALSO an Olympics year.  Of late, as in the last 4 weeks we have witnessed a few Presidential/Vice-Presidential debates.  To be totally honest, the debates were the most contentious and therefore entertaining that I have seen in my voting life.  At 33 years of age, this will have been the 4^th election I have been able to legally vote in (and I have voted in each, for the record) and that fact got me to thinking.

            The Electoral College renders votes in some states more valuable than others, and that has caused some people to simply decide not to bother with voting at all.  Strangely, as I mentioned on another site last week, those “I ain’t gonna vote” votes have a newfound value to the people who want you to vote for Romney simply because he isn’t black Obama.

            Ever the revolutionary, I daydreamed a means of making the whole voting contest as entertaining as these were – more entertaining actually – without ever having to hear the candidates blather on about numbers or be caught making embarrassingly fucked up statements in the runup to Election Tuesday every 4 years.

            First, kill the Electoral College.  No need in continuing to Cuckold the vote to the appeasement of former slave or otherwise financially valuable states.  “One vote equals one voice,” I like the sound of that and would prefer it to be actually applicable.  A popular vote is a popular vote, and it will still take place on the early-November Tuesday every 4 years as it always has.

HOWEVER!!!

It will only count for 40% of the election of an candidate.

“What the actual hell, Phillip?”

Thanks for asking!  Now I will explain it all off.

First, let me explain that the PRIMARIES will be the same; there will be some fundraising for the candidates to convince their parties that they should be allowed to run, then the opinion of voters will nominate them based upon the merits of their platforms and what matters to them as registered members of that party.  The difference will be that it would NOT take up ¾ of the election year to decide.  They will have the whole of the year BEFORE the election to do this, and the primary season will have passed us by before we have even entered the election year.  Naturally, the age/citizenship requirements must be met before one can even be considered to enter the election process.

            Now, we must set about the task of making up the remaining 60% of what gets a dude elected to the presidency…

1. Can he lead the country in the right direction? – 15%
   January and February, since they will not be digging dirt and slinging mud at one another, will sit with their perspective (or existing, for incumbents) cabinets and identify the problems the country is facing and put together a plan they have in place to right the ship where it matters.  Instead of being left to the opinions of a usually-ignorant public to vote on, it will then be passed on to a bipartisan committee of really smart guys who will crunch the numbers and consider variables.  As the lobbyists will have been kicked out of Washington, the government will be beholden to their duties to the people they actually GOVERN and not their sponsors; worry over the people who review this doing so for their own good becomes lessened.Whoever’s plan checks out better and would net the country a surplus wins this round.
   
   (this contest is about to take a turn for the peculiar, you’ve been warned)
2. Can he relate? 15%
   Wars happen.  Attacks to our allies happen.  People die and shit like that every day.  We know how people deal with things like that.  For the month of March, the perspective candidates and their families are allotted the housing/income provisions of the median income for the state in which they live.  They will be moved into a household generally occupied by that median-income family, access to their personal funds choked off for the month and their moves closely tracked to stem cheating.  The candidate whose family makes it through this without murdering himself in the face who can pass a psych eval and having lost the least weight will be considered the winner.
3. Is he a “man’s man”? – 5%
   It bothers me that I have gone my entire life without having seen a president with ANY facial hair.  I was to understand that to be the major difference between men and (most) women and I have learned not to trust a man without facial hair.  In the month of April, candidates will have all shaving supplies confiscated and their visits to barbers videotaped as they show off who is able to grow the more manly beard, as judged by a panel of prominent bearded men.
4. Decision making/problem solving – 15%
   Each candidate is allotted NO means of communication (cell phone, laptop, secret service, etc…) and instead gets a pistol, a hunting rifle (and one box of ammo each), a crossbow, a tent/sleeping bag the necessary provisions to put together a grill and start a fire without a lighter.  The candidates will then be dropped into similarly controlled environments as used in survivor television shows and filmed to avoid cheating.  They will be there for one week and should not encounter one another at all during this time.  If they encounter one another and are caught working together, then the popular vote will ultimately decide which becomes president and which VP.  If either cheats, then he loses the points for this contest.  At the end of the week, the candidate who has lost the LEAST weight in percentage-of-original weight will be considered the winner.  If either is dead, then the survivor has won the election.  If both have died, then a third party candidate as decided by popular election wins.
5. Physical challenge! – 10%
   With the days of bearded presidents, so gone are also days of a pudgy bastard as the leader of the free world.  The arguably most out-of-shape president of my lifetime has been Clinton, and even he was in good enough shape to be able to JOG to McDonald’s.... that is, of course, unless you count Reagan’s age as “out of shape.”Candidates will have to complete a battery of physical challenges similar to “Wipeout” or “MXC,” followed by an Olympic-style decathlon, and the one who turns over the best time will be considered the winner.  No adjustments are made for closeness of time, and all ties will be subject to a rematch until a winner has been determined.

If after all of this, both candidates are still alive and have not committed a transgression that will see one of them as the other’s VP, then they will have taken up to 60 of 100 points into the election and will be able to gain 40 more by way of the popular election.  They will have the summer to get their weight back up and lead a normal campaign.  If one has fallen so far behind that the 40 points will not save his ass at the election, then the winner is declared right on the spot.

And there you have it, I have cured the election cycle of MONTHS worth of shit-slinging and empty talk, all while forcing from the candidates the physical and leadership qualities that America once DEMANDED of their leaders.  No longer are we nominating the best candidate for the job – hell, usually we aren’t even given the CHOICE to – so much as we select the one that the corporate sponsors and media lead us to believe we should want, doing so with their own be$t intere$t$ in mind.

… AND it would be entertaining.