Making Political Conventions Relevant Again

I can’t remember a time in my voting-eligible life when a political convention to select a presidential candidate was actually relevant. Instead, what I’ve gotten is a week-long excuse for blowhards to yammer on endlessly while no one listens, as a few thousand people indulge in various hedonistic exercises all in the name of patriotism. I’m just happy the broadcast networks finally caught on to this scam and ceased filling prime time with this prattle. If the parties truly wanted to give us something to watch, then show us some politicking, and not a coronation party. Shoot, we don’t even get the suspense of who will be the vice-presidential nominee held until the last night anymore.

As I’ve watched this silliness mean less and less, as I’ve watch campaigns last for over a year, as I’ve watch hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted in a self-preening popularity contest, I’ve slowly been thinking that maybe the nation’s founding fathers had it right: presidential elections are much too important to leave up to the whims of the people.

Yes, you heard me. As television’s reach has been extended, and especially since the shouting-but-never-listening-much-less-thinking heads have all but taken over every “news” channel available, I’ve seen what the founders were trying to avoid: a mass of people/sheep being swayed by any charismatic voice with bright promises and a feel-good message. Never mind if they were qualified despite any superficial shortcoming. The electoral college was born of this caution, but it optimistically overlooked one key ingredient: political parties.

The factioning of the electoral college due to the polarizing views of political parties is what eventually led to having more-or-less direct vote elections. Though the electoral college still exists, the fact is that it’s now a relic no more relevant than the conventions. I think it’s time that we bow to history and revisit the idea of taking away the voice of the people from something so important as choosing a president.

It’s at this point (well, maybe before this point) that people say that I’m undemocratic. Perhaps.  Sometimes. The fact of the matter is that the majority isn’t always right. If we go with the thought posited by writer Theodore Sturgeon that “90-percent of everything is crap”, then we can easily take from that what we will. Still, if we take the populace out of the mix, it’s clear that it won’t be long before the news will be telling us that the people are revolting.

What to do? What to do? Amazingly, we don’t really have to do much to set things back on course. As primary season is currently about electing delegates and not candidates (guys, read your civics and/or poli-sci texts…seriously), let’s start with that and expand it a bit. For every congressional district, let’s elect one delegate for each major party whose one term of service begins on the same day that a president is regularly scheduled to be inaugurated. That means that you are voting for a delegate to represent you in a presidential election some four years hence. During those four years the delegate will gather information in any useful and legal way they see fit, with full oversight of any meetings of party officials. Bribes of any sort—including picking up the tab for lunch—are criminally prohibited. If there is any politicking for president in the current election cycle, it will be to these delegates and not to the public.

The great result of all of this is that when a convention convenes, it’s anyone’s guess what’s going to happen. You have a bunch of delegates who have had a chance to get to know the prospective candidates, but who are beholden to no one except their own conscience. Now we can get some serious back-door politics done.

It might not be a bad idea to select electors in a similar way…except let’s do it on the mid-term elections so that the the issues that will resonate will be a bit more immediate. Or, to avoid too much cronyism, we would do some sort of lottery drawing based on roles of voters who have voted in at least the previous three presidential elections, who are still currently able to vote, and are of sound mind.

While the freedom to vote or not vote should not be directly tampered with, I think that a tax break or rebate or something might give incentive for people to go out and vote. This national vote would be more of a congressional district-by-district poll of the candidates available, but is non-binding on the electors who, like the delegates at the convention, would be able to vote their own mind.

Since the main sticking point with electors happened early on because there was no tie-breaking procedure, let’s create one. On the first vote, it will be one elector, one vote. If no ticket wins a majority (>50% of the votes, including abstentions), then any ticket garnering less than 25% of the vote will be eliminated from consideration. The second vote will be based on states: each state casting a vote based on a plurality or majority of electors, or no vote if a tie exists. Should no ticket garner a majority of the states, then the two tickets with the most votes will be voted on again using the first method.  If, at that time, neither ticket has received a majority vote, then lots will be fairly chosen to determine the winner.

At no point of this are we pretending that this is a democracy, as democracy tends to fall apart at scales larger than a small town. Fortunately, with the United States being a federal republic, our republican (small “R”) form of government gives us a way out of our current popularity contests. If we begin to place faith once again in our representatives instead of risking all to the whims of public opinion, then the American experiment might show that empires aren’t doomed to fail because they are frightened by self-examination. We credit our founders for being men of amazing insight, what a tragedy, then, if we let our own narcissism slowly destroy a nation when the solution had already been outlined in our first principles.