"When is the last time you truly felt like you were choosing the best candidate rather than voting for the lesser of two evils? "
I honestly can't remember if I have EVER voted for a candidate that I didn't think was "the lesser of two evils."
I have wanted to get away from the party system for quite a long time. Almost as long as I've been able to vote really. Sadly, people have become too lazy or have not be taught HOW to think for themselves. They would rather someone else choose candidates for them to be "for" or "against."
The overall size of the population also brings up difficulties in putting the party system to rest. Getting word about a particular candidate out across the entire country with no financial backing would be very difficult at best. Someone that is unheard-of in one part of the country would have to start campaigning almost immediately after the last election in order for their name to be recognized on the next ballot.
They are several hurdles to clear in order to make a partyless ballot a reality. I can just about guarantee that voter turnout would be a lot lower.
The other thing about eliminating big money from campaigning is that it levels the playing field. It provides newcomers better opportunity to oppose an incumbent, whereas now, even for primaries, it is difficult for a newcomer to get on the ticket or defeat a well-funded incumbent. That's more the machinery than policy, and that's essentially the point of the article. Parties have their "platforms," but you can't count on them. You can't necessarily count on an individual candidate to hold to what they say when campaigning, but without the force of a huge corporation (party) behind them, they are easier to replace.
Exactly this. During my district Congressional primary we spent months trying to get our “no name” guy some time with the various county committees. They’d always tell us about a time they can meet the night before. We decided it was intentional and worked on ways to get on the ballot around them (we require signatures to get on ballot) 2 days before the deadline, the state head of the RNC announced his intent to run and got signatures in one day with the help of the committees.
Remove committees and he would of had to actually fight for the signatures. Another person, multi millionaire from state funded housing projects that he runs, made the ballot in one day as well by investing a ton of money into paying people to collect signatures for him. $25/hr 4 hours per day.
Unfortunately the one with the constitutional values and campaign pitch couldn’t afford that and didn’t make the ballot albeit all of our work to try to gather signatures.
Perhaps getting information about a presidential candidate would be difficult (perhaps - I don't necessarily agree), but for congressional candidates and state and local government, it should and would not be an issue. If anything, eliminating the parties would help keep local politics local, as they should be. No more injecting big money from out of state into state campaigns. No more billionaires in one state influencing the congressional elections in another. At least, that is how it should be.
I do believe that state seats should NEVER be influenced by outsiders from other states and CERTAINLY NOT from outside of the country. There would have to be a massive overhaul of the entire process. In my opinion, the ONLY campaign that should be allowed donations from multiple states would be for President. As you said, everything else needs to stay within each state, PERIOD.
I do wonder if such a thing is possible now considering the size of the country. Not to mention the fact that so many of the people voting really have such limited understsnding of how our government is intended to work. It is a huge mess to attempt to clean up. BUT, ANYTHING is possible.
I have personally experienced this issue more than once when campaigning for congressional candidates. Fact is if they haven’t been in politics they have to seriously fight to win a primary election to go onto Election Day. Without big funding that’s a big problem as well. Besides Jameson Ellis for Texas, I’ve decided to put my efforts to local politics and community relations because of this.
But it would be amazing if they removed party affiliation and dropped the “committees” that help the big names win.
Thanks now we know the founding ancestors were right about these at least. Maybe we can figure out how to prefer and get dangerous freedom over not so peaceful slavery, lol. This peaceful slavery isn’t going so well.
Washington was awesome!
How about that. Nothing has really changed in over 250 years. Wow.
"When is the last time you truly felt like you were choosing the best candidate rather than voting for the lesser of two evils? "
I honestly can't remember if I have EVER voted for a candidate that I didn't think was "the lesser of two evils."
I have wanted to get away from the party system for quite a long time. Almost as long as I've been able to vote really. Sadly, people have become too lazy or have not be taught HOW to think for themselves. They would rather someone else choose candidates for them to be "for" or "against."
The overall size of the population also brings up difficulties in putting the party system to rest. Getting word about a particular candidate out across the entire country with no financial backing would be very difficult at best. Someone that is unheard-of in one part of the country would have to start campaigning almost immediately after the last election in order for their name to be recognized on the next ballot.
They are several hurdles to clear in order to make a partyless ballot a reality. I can just about guarantee that voter turnout would be a lot lower.
The other thing about eliminating big money from campaigning is that it levels the playing field. It provides newcomers better opportunity to oppose an incumbent, whereas now, even for primaries, it is difficult for a newcomer to get on the ticket or defeat a well-funded incumbent. That's more the machinery than policy, and that's essentially the point of the article. Parties have their "platforms," but you can't count on them. You can't necessarily count on an individual candidate to hold to what they say when campaigning, but without the force of a huge corporation (party) behind them, they are easier to replace.
Exactly this. During my district Congressional primary we spent months trying to get our “no name” guy some time with the various county committees. They’d always tell us about a time they can meet the night before. We decided it was intentional and worked on ways to get on the ballot around them (we require signatures to get on ballot) 2 days before the deadline, the state head of the RNC announced his intent to run and got signatures in one day with the help of the committees.
Remove committees and he would of had to actually fight for the signatures. Another person, multi millionaire from state funded housing projects that he runs, made the ballot in one day as well by investing a ton of money into paying people to collect signatures for him. $25/hr 4 hours per day.
Unfortunately the one with the constitutional values and campaign pitch couldn’t afford that and didn’t make the ballot albeit all of our work to try to gather signatures.
Perhaps getting information about a presidential candidate would be difficult (perhaps - I don't necessarily agree), but for congressional candidates and state and local government, it should and would not be an issue. If anything, eliminating the parties would help keep local politics local, as they should be. No more injecting big money from out of state into state campaigns. No more billionaires in one state influencing the congressional elections in another. At least, that is how it should be.
I do believe that state seats should NEVER be influenced by outsiders from other states and CERTAINLY NOT from outside of the country. There would have to be a massive overhaul of the entire process. In my opinion, the ONLY campaign that should be allowed donations from multiple states would be for President. As you said, everything else needs to stay within each state, PERIOD.
I do wonder if such a thing is possible now considering the size of the country. Not to mention the fact that so many of the people voting really have such limited understsnding of how our government is intended to work. It is a huge mess to attempt to clean up. BUT, ANYTHING is possible.
I have personally experienced this issue more than once when campaigning for congressional candidates. Fact is if they haven’t been in politics they have to seriously fight to win a primary election to go onto Election Day. Without big funding that’s a big problem as well. Besides Jameson Ellis for Texas, I’ve decided to put my efforts to local politics and community relations because of this.
But it would be amazing if they removed party affiliation and dropped the “committees” that help the big names win.
Thanks now we know the founding ancestors were right about these at least. Maybe we can figure out how to prefer and get dangerous freedom over not so peaceful slavery, lol. This peaceful slavery isn’t going so well.
Indeed, some of our malignant tumors have been around since the founding. Sad.