I think in the status quo we are headed for "Pre Primary Primaries". Imagine if in 2020 Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren decided to hold a Progressive Primary before the Democratic primary to consolidate their vote and give the most influence to the left in the Democratic primary. Imagine if Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden decided to hold a Moderate Primary to decide who their best electability champion is, name recognition aside. Imagine if in 2016 Republicans held a Business Primary and a Conservatism Primary. A huge strategic advantage for any coalition!
Primary voters have already started to figure out that all primaries eventually converge to a two-person race, so without any formal Pre-Primary primary I think we are seeing it happen in polling. And its turtles all the way down.
Three days is definitely too short. We need at least a month to sort through rounds of media narratives and counter-narratives, and to have some time for substantive issues.
The restriction on campaign advertising is also a problem. It will just move campaign activity underground. Do we really want the election settled by native advertising, access-journalism, and shill influencers? If we think there should be less political advertising, people should give less!
Smoke-filled rooms instead of primaries is a totally different proposal than the campaign duration.
One tweak to this idea could be requiring the parties have a leader at all times (like parliamentary parties) and then that leader has a somewhat comparable bully pulpit as the president. Perhaps that leader has floor privileges in Congress as well.
I think America, and the rest of the world for that matter, has already figured out how to whittle down a pack of candidates and determine who is the best...a reality show. Have each party present 12 candidates in a way similar to how they determine who makes the debate stage. Then have weekly debates, town halls, interviews, or some sort of obstacle course on live TV, eliminating one candidate for each party each week. Everybody votes on their phones, like we should be doing already. Then, have a two or three week showdown of the winners of each party. By the end of the season, we know the candidates better than we know most of our family members and maybe we have the best leader we could possibly get. At least it would eliminate most of the influence of campaign money, and be a helluva lot more democratic than our current process.
I was about to say, before I read the author’s name: This take doesn’t sound like Matt.
No stranger to blue-sky thinking in public, that man—but also, not prone to griping in general about dadgum American electoral politics and its petty annoyances, like so many of us.
My only comment: I disagree with the notion that proverbial “smoke-filled rooms” would come up with better, more appealing candidates than the ones we’ve got. That’s a belief spurred by the prejudice of the current moment, with little else to back it.
Smoke-filled room members are human like the rest of us, and the notion that they, of all people, would be “more” responsive to the appeal of the populace than the so-called “extreme, highly-engaged” primary electorate is dubious on its face.
We’ve had smoke-filled rooms, of sorts (megadonors, activists, business roundtables, etc.), run parties and effectively select candidates in too many states to count, in both parties. Their ability to have their finger on the button of what appeals to the voters, to a greater extent than the voters themselves, is not in evidence.
Besides which, primary voters, for all their flaws and infamy, are the closest equivalent to “popular will” before Election Day, and they’ve selected the last two presidents as the two most appealing candidates. That actually kinda makes sense, if you care about what presidents do.
If you just care about politics as a spectacle for our inspiration and personal motivation with less care for the boring policy consequences, Jon Stewart-style, you’ll likely have a different take. Lord knows most political junkies fit into that category right now. :/
Most people are doing this *already.* They ignore the news around presidential campaigns, because they don’t read the news anyway. When November comes, they vote their gut or vote along with tribe.
Most people are doing this *already.* They ignore the news around presidential campaigns, because they don’t read the news anyway. When November comes, they vote their gut or vote along with tribe.
I've never really gotten all the whining from people about how the "campaign is too long." If you find it annoying just ignore it or learn to suck it up. Personally I think the Oscars are kind of dumb so you know what I do? I ignore them.
While we are making wishes, I say make elections Slow and Boring! Have the primaries elect a slate of 5 candidates per party. Election day selects the party slate that is elected from for president. Then on another election day everyone votes for the candidate from that slate. This is done in run offs until a candidate reaches a majority.
This addresses many problems with the current system. It first punishes the strategy of appeal to 26% of the base in the primary and then try to eek out 49% by party affiliation in the general. Next it makes primary horse races much less interesting as there is no one winner amongst 5. So it will be harder to write exciting horse race stories. It makes everyone compromise and cast a ballot for someone they disagree about quite a lot with (at least over multiple elections). Not voting along pure tribal lines is probably healthier for all of us psychologically. The winner will actually be required to get a majority of votes in the last round. That seems nice. Finally there is a massive incentive to tack to the middle to win over the losing party's members by credibly promising good governance. So promise to be boring.
It will take at minimum an extra month maybe two so it'll be slow too.
Imagine if the SJC would rescind their Citizens United Decision. Corporate donations and Super PACS would be leveled. There would be more monitoring of political contributions. Yay!! Many States value having a State Primary. I believe Primaries are functional because the USA is vastly larger than either the UK or Sweden. State Primaries can also surface Regional Candidates for Vice President. All the Drama and outsized Glitz would cool down considerably if less money were available for Campaigns.
Parbaked Takes: bake it yourself at home! Restaurant-quality punditry in minutes!
Seems like it'd be important to declare a federal 3-day holiday if one wants to add the equivalent of another Super Bowl weekend, or somehow otherwise guarantee that everyone has paid time off from work to watch the Big Horse Race. (I also assume you're not abolishing in-person voting, this too is a beloved tradition.) Other than that, the only reaction I've got is "cut spending? sounds disinflationary, that's great". Maybe attach some campaign finance reforms, so in slump years we encourage candidates to spend profligately over those 3 days. Get that aggregate domestic demand up! Or vice versa in inflationary times, limit the blitz and reward austerity. If Taylor Swift can nudge GDP numbers with concerts, surely we can do the same with Presidential Purges.
I think in the status quo we are headed for "Pre Primary Primaries". Imagine if in 2020 Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren decided to hold a Progressive Primary before the Democratic primary to consolidate their vote and give the most influence to the left in the Democratic primary. Imagine if Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden decided to hold a Moderate Primary to decide who their best electability champion is, name recognition aside. Imagine if in 2016 Republicans held a Business Primary and a Conservatism Primary. A huge strategic advantage for any coalition!
Primary voters have already started to figure out that all primaries eventually converge to a two-person race, so without any formal Pre-Primary primary I think we are seeing it happen in polling. And its turtles all the way down.
Three days is definitely too short. We need at least a month to sort through rounds of media narratives and counter-narratives, and to have some time for substantive issues.
The restriction on campaign advertising is also a problem. It will just move campaign activity underground. Do we really want the election settled by native advertising, access-journalism, and shill influencers? If we think there should be less political advertising, people should give less!
Smoke-filled rooms instead of primaries is a totally different proposal than the campaign duration.
One tweak to this idea could be requiring the parties have a leader at all times (like parliamentary parties) and then that leader has a somewhat comparable bully pulpit as the president. Perhaps that leader has floor privileges in Congress as well.
Three days? I'd be so grateful if the election period were limited to 6 weeks!
And the smoke filled room is way better than primary voting.
I think America, and the rest of the world for that matter, has already figured out how to whittle down a pack of candidates and determine who is the best...a reality show. Have each party present 12 candidates in a way similar to how they determine who makes the debate stage. Then have weekly debates, town halls, interviews, or some sort of obstacle course on live TV, eliminating one candidate for each party each week. Everybody votes on their phones, like we should be doing already. Then, have a two or three week showdown of the winners of each party. By the end of the season, we know the candidates better than we know most of our family members and maybe we have the best leader we could possibly get. At least it would eliminate most of the influence of campaign money, and be a helluva lot more democratic than our current process.
Less a Take Bakery than a production line for (Jonathan) Swifties.
I was about to say, before I read the author’s name: This take doesn’t sound like Matt.
No stranger to blue-sky thinking in public, that man—but also, not prone to griping in general about dadgum American electoral politics and its petty annoyances, like so many of us.
My only comment: I disagree with the notion that proverbial “smoke-filled rooms” would come up with better, more appealing candidates than the ones we’ve got. That’s a belief spurred by the prejudice of the current moment, with little else to back it.
Smoke-filled room members are human like the rest of us, and the notion that they, of all people, would be “more” responsive to the appeal of the populace than the so-called “extreme, highly-engaged” primary electorate is dubious on its face.
We’ve had smoke-filled rooms, of sorts (megadonors, activists, business roundtables, etc.), run parties and effectively select candidates in too many states to count, in both parties. Their ability to have their finger on the button of what appeals to the voters, to a greater extent than the voters themselves, is not in evidence.
Besides which, primary voters, for all their flaws and infamy, are the closest equivalent to “popular will” before Election Day, and they’ve selected the last two presidents as the two most appealing candidates. That actually kinda makes sense, if you care about what presidents do.
If you just care about politics as a spectacle for our inspiration and personal motivation with less care for the boring policy consequences, Jon Stewart-style, you’ll likely have a different take. Lord knows most political junkies fit into that category right now. :/
3 days is a bit too short, even Singapore has it over about 2 weeks. But yeah it really shouldn't be longer than a month or so.
Most people are doing this *already.* They ignore the news around presidential campaigns, because they don’t read the news anyway. When November comes, they vote their gut or vote along with tribe.
Most people are doing this *already.* They ignore the news around presidential campaigns, because they don’t read the news anyway. When November comes, they vote their gut or vote along with tribe.
If you don't want to suffer through the upcoming nine month slog of a campaign, then don't. Tune out and rejoin only when you want to.
No one is forcing anyone to pay attention to a long campaign.
I've never really gotten all the whining from people about how the "campaign is too long." If you find it annoying just ignore it or learn to suck it up. Personally I think the Oscars are kind of dumb so you know what I do? I ignore them.
While we are making wishes, I say make elections Slow and Boring! Have the primaries elect a slate of 5 candidates per party. Election day selects the party slate that is elected from for president. Then on another election day everyone votes for the candidate from that slate. This is done in run offs until a candidate reaches a majority.
This addresses many problems with the current system. It first punishes the strategy of appeal to 26% of the base in the primary and then try to eek out 49% by party affiliation in the general. Next it makes primary horse races much less interesting as there is no one winner amongst 5. So it will be harder to write exciting horse race stories. It makes everyone compromise and cast a ballot for someone they disagree about quite a lot with (at least over multiple elections). Not voting along pure tribal lines is probably healthier for all of us psychologically. The winner will actually be required to get a majority of votes in the last round. That seems nice. Finally there is a massive incentive to tack to the middle to win over the losing party's members by credibly promising good governance. So promise to be boring.
It will take at minimum an extra month maybe two so it'll be slow too.
Imagine if the SJC would rescind their Citizens United Decision. Corporate donations and Super PACS would be leveled. There would be more monitoring of political contributions. Yay!! Many States value having a State Primary. I believe Primaries are functional because the USA is vastly larger than either the UK or Sweden. State Primaries can also surface Regional Candidates for Vice President. All the Drama and outsized Glitz would cool down considerably if less money were available for Campaigns.
Your idea got us thinking about Ye Olden Days.
Parbaked Takes: bake it yourself at home! Restaurant-quality punditry in minutes!
Seems like it'd be important to declare a federal 3-day holiday if one wants to add the equivalent of another Super Bowl weekend, or somehow otherwise guarantee that everyone has paid time off from work to watch the Big Horse Race. (I also assume you're not abolishing in-person voting, this too is a beloved tradition.) Other than that, the only reaction I've got is "cut spending? sounds disinflationary, that's great". Maybe attach some campaign finance reforms, so in slump years we encourage candidates to spend profligately over those 3 days. Get that aggregate domestic demand up! Or vice versa in inflationary times, limit the blitz and reward austerity. If Taylor Swift can nudge GDP numbers with concerts, surely we can do the same with Presidential Purges.
Glad I only skimmed