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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive.
Editorial: 3/4/2000 A few lagers with lime, a few shots of reposado, a few glimpses of the
mother right whale and her calf sounding to the bottom of the bright blue bay
and it was easy to forget the depressing spectacle of the presidential debates.
Poor old cranky Alan Keyes was the only one of the five whose rhetoric wasn't
as canned as Mexican disco music.
The Rio Papagayo has seen the sublime--Bogart and Hepburn filmed "The
African Queen" there--and the ridiculous--Stallone followed thirty years later
with "Rambo II". Zihuantenejo bay was where Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman ended
up at the end of "The Shawshank Redemption." Watching the debates somewhere
between them had the same cognatively dissonant effect as realizing that, on film,
Mexico could masquerade as both the Congo and Vietnam.
Even the two mavericks were tamed. John McCain, the man who has more than
doubled turnout because people voting in open primaries want to support a
flesh-and-blood human being with a real life, managed to sound like he was running
for national mayor. Bill Bradley, who was en fuego until he made change and public
service sound less like a McCainesque adventure and more like the civic equivalent
of eating your broccoli, was going through the motions until he could give it
up sometime after the Fat Tuesday 16-state primary.
Al Gore had the unctious appeal of a time-share salesman. George W. Bush's
soundtrack was stuck on the same ten responses. But then, these are two men bred
from the cradle for this, both hoping the bloodlines are still rich enough to
give them the genetic make-up of Secretariat and not a plow horse.
Why do we end up with the political equivalent of pod people every four years?
The answer stared at you in the mirror this morning. As that great political
philosopher Walt Kelly noted in his "Pogo" comic strips over a quarter century ago,
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
We've gladly surrendered control of the entire process to big money. From
the cash of the A.F. of L.-C.I.O. and the clout of every hyphenated-American
group with a melanin-based grudge bankrolling Gore to the evolutionary
throwbacks of the fundamentalist right wing annointing Bush, we prefer to let the
true beleivers fix the game before it ever starts. Then we're glad to vote for
whichever twaddlemeister looks best on Letterman and seems least likely to
eat our young.
The problem starts with political advertising and continues through closed
primaries and caucuses. Only money equivalent to the gross national product of
Bolivia can buy the ads. Only the support of groups so fringe they belong in
Neil Young's closet can turn out the faithful. And the old-fashioned centerists?
Moderate Republicans? Reagan Democrats? The radical middle? The indys? Well
hell, they can always vote for a fascist like Pat Buchannan or a Martian like
Ross Perot or the perennial Libertarians.
Herewith, a modest proposal (consciously ripping off Johnathan Swift's
"Modest Proposal" that suggested the Irish ease 17th century famine by cooking
their children). Give each and every candidate early in the season a few hours
free time to speil on every network. Free. Then hold a national primary over
an entire weekend. Let people vote from their homes using touch tone. Let them
vote on-line. Everybody is listed on one single ballot.
Then take the top four finishers, give them some more air time, and vote
again a couple of weekends later. Same deal. Then proclaim the top two finishers
the finalists and let them slug it out until November. Would that mean McCain
running against Bradley? Maybe Bush against Gore? Perhaps Bush versus McCain
or Gore against Bradley. Whatever.
We live in a post-industrial, post-modern, post-ideological world. The current
system rewards the same ideological purity that most Americans find absurd.
It's time to try something completely different. Either that, or go back to
watching whales.
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