A COUNTRY DIVIDED

Well, if you've been following current events then you more than likely have heard about the insanity surrounding the election of our next president of the United States. It all comes down to Florida, the very state I live in. Interestingly enough, as of writing this article the separation of votes between Bush and Gore is listed as a mere 229 votes. 229 votes! That's all. If it were all simple then we could just say, "well, he (Bush) won...sort of" and leave it at that, but the thing of it is, there's just one county in my state where their ballots were rather confusing, and all the voters from this precinct who voted want a revote. Even besides this there remains the will over the country as a whole, where Al Gore received more popular votes than George W. Bush. If you are a little new to politics, I'll explain why this is such a huge mess. To win the presidency the cantidate must win at least 270 Electoral Votes in order to become president of the United States. Electoral Votes are really what make the whole political process confusing. You see each state gets a certain point value, that represents it's total electoral votes. States with bigger populations get more Electoral Votes. For instance my state gets 25 points, or 25 Electoral Votes if the cantidate that is chosen for president wins the total popular vote in the state. Where it gets fuzzy is that electoral votes are only cast by a special elite group of electors that most of the time vote in the direction of the will of the people but don't really have to. Confused yet, I figured. This really used to chap my hide in Social Studies and I tended to think it all sounded a little nuts but basically, you see to be the president, popular vote technically doesn't matter, it's the Electoral Vote that is counted for the election. This wacky system was devised by the founding fathers as a kind of way of assuming that the general public is either too poor or uninformed to actually vote for themselves. This was developed in the early 19th century, but such an archaic system is in fact severely outdated. It is very unlikly for any cantidate to win the popular vote (total votes in the country) and lose the electoral votes. I usually doesn't happen so no one really bothers to complain about it.

What's more, the notion of political parties has been thrown into the mix. The prevailing existance of political parties where one guy supposedly represents a certain set domain of ideas, and the other cantidate (usually the opponent) represents a certain other group of ideas, is just pointless. Currently there is a duopoly of two parties in our nation, The Republican Party, also known as "The Grand Old Party" and often represented with an Elephant as a symbol, and the Democratic Party, frequently depicted as the Donkey. This separation supposedly defines the boundaries of what some call themselves and Conservative and others as Liberal. These two parties supposedly represent the will of the people but in actually this is an illusion portrayed by their existance. It's difficult to really explain these two parties accurately because in general they are so filled with generalities that it's not entirely clear what they represent at times. Supposedly, the Republican Party is there as a symbol of "traditional" old ways of doing things, and old values. Republicans tend to want to be strict about things, Republicans tend to want to increase the size of the military, lessen the involvement of government in social issues, reward large corporations and the upper middle class and rich with incentives and tax breaks. They also claim to represent a way over used term in these days, "Family Values" whereby they feel that they can legislate your morality and say that you can and can't do something because it wasn't done that way before. Many Christians in America tend to say they are affiliated with this party. Republicans also seem to cling strongly to the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and are often advocates of gun ownership. Conversely, the Democrats tend to lean toward expanding the use of the government's collected tax dollars amongst the entirety of the nation, as well as creating various social welfare programs to help those less fortunate on the lowest portion of the economic strata, like the Poor, and Lower to Mid Middle class. Democrats usually are for things like the equal rights of all people like whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, homosexuals, religions other than Christianity (although some Catholics tend to be democrats) etc. Things like Social Security and Welfare for the old, the infirm, and the impoverished are things that Democrats claim to advocate. Democrats tend to lean in the direction of making various programs and initiatives to bring up the standard of living for some so that society as a whole can be benefited. Democrats also tend to be more in support for issues involving the cleaning of the environment and the preserving of natural resources. A phrase I've heard in association with Democrats labeled by Republicans is "Bleeding Heart Liberals" meaning by the person who says it, "You care too much and those people, they don't need our help, let them help themselves. If they suffer than oh well. It's survival of the fittest." Political people will basically catagorize you as a Conservative or a Liberal, Republican or Democrat. Oddly enough, if you choose another Party, it's like you are a "Second Class Citizen" and you can't participate in Party only elections.

This of course doesn't preclude the fact that there is a choice of "Independant" If you are independant, it means you belong to neither party. There are even other parties that are inherently independant from the other two, but they give themselves a name like "Reform Party" "Libertarian Party" "Green Party" etc. These parties are usually never looked upon with much merit because people are in general weened on the other two big guys. In general the other two big parties run the big political show and say who gets to run for an office and when, especially when it comes to positions like the presidency of the United States.

But here's where the overall underlying issue of where the parties gain support arises. Ever wonder where those guys running for President get all the money for TV ads day in and out, plane rides all over the country, political signs by the millions, debate time on TV networks, and the salaries of people who run the parties and work for them. Some of the money comes right out of American's pockets in the form of taxes, while the rest of it is supplied by "special interest groups" What is a special interest group you ask? Basically, they are various companies, industries, large corporations, groups of wealthy, labor unions, etc. These groups will supply money to support a specific individual's campaign if they do something in return for them. It's the old "one hand washes the other" cliche. Liken it also to NASCAR or Stockcar racing where you see all those company logos on some guy's car. The same thing happens with special interest groups and politicians, but they just don't flaunt it openly. Major special interest groups include the Oil Industry, the Tobacco Industry, the Steel Workers Union, the Pharmaceutical Industy, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. Many times single large corporations and companies make large campaign fund contributions expecting something in return, like a tax cut or special incentive for helping get the guy elected. For example, a logging special interest group might supply a politican with a large campaign finance contribution so that he will not pass a law that will make a certain area of the country a State Park, or environmental preserve so that they can continue logging in that area and thus make far more profit than they gave away to the politican. The bottom line is essentially, greed, nothing more.

Here's how this political rollercoaster began. On Tuesday, Millions of Americans went out to polls to vote for the next President as well as many other political positions all the way down to the county level. At about 7:00 the polls on the East Coast Time Zone, closed. As it were The Media immediately started "calling" states, with only a less than majority percentage of the ballots counted. The media was quick to award this state and that state to one guy or another, tallying up the potential Electoral Votes each guy won by getting the most votes in each state. Florida just so happened to be a state where it's electoral votes were hastily given away to Gore early in the evening. The problem was, is that the panhandle of the state of Florida is not in the Eastern Standard Timezone, so in essense there were folks still standing in line waiting to vote at 6:00 PM Central Standard Time when the state was called by stations like CBS and CNN. One thing I thought about was that, if I was standing in line for well over an hour, and all of the sudden I found out the guy I wanted to vote for had "taken" the state's electoral vote, then I might be pressed to just walk home and save myself the continued inconvienience and aggrivation of spending so much time in line because I knew the guy already won. The media claims to have gotten it's results from "exit polling" where people are asked who they voted for after they cast their ballots. As it were, this was the first blunder of the election. The next came when we kept hearing George W. Bush and is campaign committee claim that they had not lost Florida and they felt "giving" Florida to Gore was shortsighted. As it turned out, shortly after Bush saying this, the Media then abruptly took Florida and put it back into the "toss up" or "nobody really knows" category. From here things started getting screwy. As the Media continued to play it's political chess game of "calling" states for this guy or that guy and commenting on the various possible reasons as to why some guy won a specific state and so on, the margins of victory as the percentages of total votes counted neared 100% became slimmer and slimmer. In many states it became a "dead heat" with less than a few thousand, or even a few hundred votes separating the two Presidential Cantidates, with either Gore or Bush winning by an extremely slim margin. When all was said and done, there were many uncertainties and states like Oregon, Florida, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, and and some others were just "too close to call" and thus even when the final vote totals were tallyed, there was a lot of confusion due to the fact that Americans vote the country into a total 50/50 situation. The funny thing of Tuesday's election was, that this can almost be blamed partially on Ralph Nader, the Green Party cantidate who wanted to get his token 5% to get Government campaign funding, but instead didn't achieve this but rather became the spoiler mostly leeching votes off of Al Gore. (Ralph Nader fell more toward the Democratic point of view, than a Republican one) In many states the margin of victory for either Bush (mostly Bush) or Gore was very close to the amount of votes Ralph Nader got. Ralph's whole ambition with his campaign was to show how much the duopoly Party system was a failure and unacceptable for the proper democratic process. In effect, he may have proved his point but putting the two parties in turmoil.

In order for there to be closure to the election, one of these guys HAD TO WIN FLORIDA. No Florida, no president. The Media, tucked it's tail between it's legs regarding Florida, issuing a retraction, then said it was "too close to call." Then around 2:00 AM that Wednesday Morning, the Media said George W. Bush had taken the most votes in Florida. Mind you, not every ballot had been counted yet, somewhere around 94% had. Al Gore phoned George Bush, and conceded the election to him, but shortly thereafter more vote tallies came in from other counties in Florida that had not finished counting, and as it turned out, Al Gore was rapidly catching up to Bush's lead in numbers. Then, subsequently, Al Gore phoned George Bush and told him that his "concession" was off, and that things were just too close to call in Florida for him to make that action. At this time, this was the first inkling of the issue of "ballot irregularities" that came up regarding West Palm Beach County's ballot format. It sort of lingered in the background and soon quickly ballooned into a National Media Circus. All the votes in all the other states neared total counting but Florida remained a question mark. It seemed that Bush was wining by a mere 1,700 votes out of close to 6 Million total votes, but this is nowhere near where the story ends.

By Florida law if some guy wins by less than a half a percentage point, then they have to do a "recount" thus requiring the voting committees to recount EVERY SINGLE VOTE. Indeed over the next day and thereafter, a recount commenced. It soon became apparent then there were many mistakes with the ballots and soon more votes for each cantidate began to surface due to computer errors, incompletely punched voting cards, overlooked ballots, and uncounted absentee ballots. Bush's lead narrowed down even closer and closer until finally it would seem that he barely in the lead by approximately 300 votes. 300 measly votes out of 6 Million. It's almost ludicrious to think that the most important position in our country hangs in the balance on 300 (maybe less) votes.

Where this gets even more into a tangled knot of political insanity is that Al Gore received MORE VOTES nationwide, but, that doesn't count because it goes back to that crazy state by state point system of Electoral Votes. Couple this with that festering issue with voters holding signs in Palm Beach County, Florida, chanting "we want a revote!" "we want a revote!" What happened in Palm Beach County? It would seem that they were using a different ballot structure and when people had to vote, the holes were placed in an up and down row, with each cantidate staggered on either side. It's been dubbed the "Butterfly Ballot" Many folks found the ballot confusing and ended up voting for one of those Third Party Cantidates, Pat Buchanan, instead of Al Gore because his punch hole was second, instead of the third where people expected it to be. There was also a line above Al Gore's name that pointed to the second punch hole, but there was in fact an arrow pointing to the 3rd punch hole. You've got to figure sometimes if your grandma can't understand the instructions to the VCR, then you can probably understand how some people may have been confused and chose the wrong guy accidentally.

It gets ugly when we try to "fix" this situation, because the fix in itself would undermine the very foundation of the "tried and true" political process, opening up more cans of worms, and especially in this election this whole issue could be debated forever, leaving the presidential position vacant for some time. If that county in Florida gets it's revote, and then those voters who meant to Vote for Al Gore, make him win Florida, then Bush will likely start taking shots at other states that he just barely lost in and start declairing more and more recounts, and revotes, and the snowball grows larger, and we have no President. Add to this the involvement of the courts and legal system with lawsuits and injunctions and you have a political quagmire of unfathomable and mindboggling proportions. Bill Clinton is still there sitting in the hot seat, but his day is supposedly over, and it's time, according to the Constitution of the United States, to replace him, but who should replace him? Al Gore who won more votes in the country as a whole, or George Bush who won more states?

America has, in fact, become a 50/50 bar. The Senate is split, 50 Republican Senators, and 50 Democratic Senators. The House of Representatives itself is only held by the Republicans by a very slim margin. The presidential election is "too close to call" according to the Media, with 48% going to George W. Bush, and 48% going to Al Gore, who has a slight edge in the National Popular Vote. perhaps due to the overall similarity of each cantidate and an equal number of supposed trade-offs that are made by electing one over the other. Perhaps Ralph Nader did expose the idiocy of the Two Party system, and it's weakness has now been exposed. Our country's political process has become the laughing stock of other nations like Great Britain and Germany.


What's the solution? I've thought of a number of ways things could be done significantly better in the political process. Mind you, I'm just a nobody without a doctorate in Polical Science, so my opinions probably don't count to the pundits who make the big decisions but I've got the internet on my side and these websites where I can stand on my soap box, and damn well say what I please. Here's the way I see it. The Electoral College and Electoral Votes for the presidency are just a huge farce. I mean, come on, how is it possible that some guy can get elected without having a majority of Americans actually elect him. That's just ludicrious, and inherently illogical. If for some idiotic reason we must keep the Electoral College, then that point system for each state should be split down the middle with the guy who won the state taking a majority of the electoral votes, and the guy who lost, getting the minority of votes, or even better yet, and amount of electoral votes proportional to the percentage of popular votes received in each state. For instance in the Florida example, Gore would get 12 Electoral Votes, while Bush (if he wins) would get 13 equaling the total of 25 Electoral Votes. Really, the best solution is removing the Electoral College entirely.


Furthermore, campaign fund raising needs to be reformed. All monies donated to the campaign should be added to a general pool of funds, along with collected tax allotments. When it comes time for the Primaries, individuals who want to take the role as president could obtain various petitions and gain a certain number of signatures (no party backing needed). There really should only be two cantidates for the presidency so it may be necessary to hold an additional primary election to narrow down the field of cantidates, in essense a run off. The remaining 2 cantidates could then draw an equal amount of funds from the campaign fund, and thus begin their campaign on an equal footing. Cantidates should not have a monitary advantage over another. It basically prices people who might otherwise deserve the presidency out of the opportunity. In this though there is the loophole of the cantidate's own assets, some of these guys are so rich that they can devote massive amounts of their own resources to indoctrinate the entire American public on their flavor of rederic. The advantage to having the campaing finance pool is to remove any bias a cantidate might have toward any special interest group, lobbyist, or corporate sponsor.

The 2 party system itself is also a big part of the problem on Capitol Hill. In actuality a "party" affiliation makes it seem like a politician is biased toward a certain way of thinking. Some don't always follow this regime, but in general Senators and Representative tend to have this mass vote with only their party members even if they don't agree with something. Politicians should, in fact, represent the general will of the people, not their party. Parties lead to nothing but gridlock and a governmental morass. Asking for this to happen is a tall order, and these ramblings will probably fall on the deaf ears of millions of Americans weened on this notion that "you are either this kind of person or that kind of person - pick a party" Things would get done a lot more efficiently if people just cooperated together in government.

Political Attack Ads and personality bashing is another glaring flaw in American politics. I saw so many of these during the election, where Ads for the bush campaign indicated that Gore was stealing old people's social security and wasting the budget surplus on "big government" while Ads against Bush touted him as being incompetent and wanting to take away prescription drugs from seniors, and that his state was the most poluted in the country, has a minimum wage of $3.35, and ranks 50th in education standards. The only reason we elect politicians is so that they can perform the collective will of the people, not fight with each other over points of view. Stick to the issues that people care about, not personal attacks. Politicians seeking the presidency need ot make a REASONABLE outline of what plans and provisions they are looking to impliment over the next 4 years and put those on display and let Americans choose what interests them without the fighting over who's plan is better.

Voting should be done during a week's period of time. This would allow for a greater percentage of Americans to take the initiative to vote. I myself find it difficult to vote on a workday where I usually go to work when the Polls open in the morning, and find myself coming home as the polls close. This makes voting a major inconvienience for me as well as many other people who have to work on Election Day. This would likely also allow for mistakes and irregularities in the balloting process to be caught before the election is over. Furthermore, there should be one, national, standardized concise ballot, perhaps even something involving a high security closed system computer with double redundant backup that would actually involve touchscreens and big fat circles so no one could mistake who they are voting for, and after a voter is done voting it would print out two hard copies of that person's ballot, one for them to keep and another for the election committee. You can't have mistakes with digital ballots as opposed to the alternative of archaic punchcards. Current events have proven why the political process needs an upgrade in this regard.

The News Media needs to shut up until the western time zone states finish voting and close the polls. That's just wrong that you start calling the whole election before people in the west are even finished voting. This bends the election in the wrong direction when they do this. Once every state closes its polls and starts counting, then the news media can start it's play by play on how many votes have been tallied and who's winning thus far. I'm pretty sure that Americans in the eastern time zone can wait the extra few hours while states like Washington, California, Oregon, and Nevada finish up, it's not going to kill anyone if they don't know who Dan Rather thinks is going to win a state with 11% of the precincts reporting. Common sense, is all I ask.

This election we just witnessed last Tuesday was and still is a mess. No one clearly won it and we could be counting and recounting votes until the end of time, or at least until one of these guys, Bush or Gore, gives it a rest, and just concedes. In chess this would be called a Stalemate, nobody wins. You know, I even had the thought of maybe making both of these guys President. Although a co-presidency would be unprecedented and probably unconstitutional it probably wouldn't be such a bad idea. If these two guys could get past their alleged differences due to partisanship then it's possible that more could get done if they worked together. While one guy was handling foreign affairs the other could be handling domestic issues. It's obvious that Americans want both of them to be President, so give them what they want. Yes, I know it will never happen that way, but after this election, anything is possible right!

I hope that this article (rather lengthy wasn't it) gives you at least some insight into the insanity and stupidity of the American Political Process. It just amazes me that I live in the state that's holding up the whole thing, and just how assinine the whole thing truly is.