Queen for a Day: Revamping the Political Campaign Process

I mentioned yesterday that Election Day is coming (don't forget to vote on Tuesday!) and if your location is anything like mine, things are getting mucky. I come home every day to three or four pre-recorded messages on my machine touting this or that. On a good day, there are only one or two who take the opportunity to sling mud at their rival - it's not been a good day very many times. Then you've got the TV and radio ads, where candidates seem more interested in trashing their rival than in actually informing you what they stand for. Which leaves you with, essentially, the option of either voting for the one who does the least mud slinging or voting down a party line. It's more and more difficult to find out enough information about where a candidate stands if you look to the information coming from that candidate.

It's frankly quite annoying. And I wish I could say that one party was better about it than another, but really? They're the same. No one seems to be willing or able to just rise above it (though of course there is the thought process that if someone goes on a smear campaign you kind of have to respond or end up doing damage because people think you can't defend yourself. Catch-22, I do realize that.)

Anyway, were I Queen for a Day, here are the rules I would lay down for any political campaigning.

1. Each candidate must put together a list of things they are for and things they are against. They can have as few or as many as they want - and even if they just go party line, they have to clearly state, in writing and on their website, "I approve of X" or "I disapprove of Y." If they want to use the political language, that's fine (in other words I fully understand that the left side will say "I support a woman's right to choose." and the right side will say "I believe that all life is precious." so that they can make it positive language. No worries. Most people are smart enough to read the correct meaning through those statements.)
2. If a candidate has served previously, their past voting record must be included in layman's terms. This would take the form of "Bill such-and-such: My vote: " If they would like to include a justification, that's fine.
3. For any known upcoming legislation that, if elected, this person will have a chance to influence, they need to do the same with an explanation of where they stand on it and why.
4. No candidate is, under any circumstances, to say anything about any other candidate. Even if there's something juicy out there. Just be the bigger person and don't campaign on the fact that you think you're a better choice than so and so. Tell me why you're a good choice in general.
5. TV and radio ads will be of the form, "Hi, my name is X and I'm running for Y. I believe in . You can find more information about me and what I stand for at . Please get out to vote on <>." That's it. None of these dark, secretive, expose-journalistic commercials that tell you nothing about the candidate sponsoring the ad and serve only to sling muck at someone else.
6. The media can only report either the items in 1 and 2 or other unbiased information. (Information, not commentary.) And equal time would be enforced along with equal positive time vs. equal negative time.

I know it leaves a little out (and it's all massively unrealistic, but then, so is me being Queen for a Day) - but really, I just want information. I don't want to know why you think the other guys suck.

The thing is - and I think it's the thing that people really need to understand - is you have to have a defined world view in order to figure out how to vote in an informed way. If you don't know what you believe and why - if you have no world view - then all you have to fall back on is what the media feeds you. Whatever your political stance, I'd encourage you to figure out what you stand for and why you stand for it. Then vote for people who agree.

In the meantime, if you're looking for information to be an informed voter, these are three sources I recommend (coming from, as you might suspect, a Christian world view):

The Family Foundation (really most useful if you're in Virginia)

Family Research Council (they have scorecards for Congress that you can download for free to see how the people you elect really vote once they get to the job you gave them.)

Focus on the Family (especially their Citizen Link.)