Post-election Fatigue

Tuesday was Primary election day in Arkansas. The ads were flying fast and furiously. Some were amusing, some were tacky. But, there were a boatload of them and we got really tired of them.

I mean really tired!

So, in an effort to curb campaign spending, (and in a bigger effort to effect a de facto enactment of term limits) I'm dragging out my old Plan to re-vamp how folks get sent to DC to run (and ruin) our lives:

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2009

Moogie's Fun and Revolutionary Plan for Public Service Reform in D.C.

In a moment of blinding clarity, I have stumbled upon what could be the salvation of our nation and our Republic.

We have to chunk out our system of federal elections and start over from scratch.

The states may continue to do whatever they please for intra-state elections pursuant to the Tenth Amendment, and that'll get the Feds off their backs for a whole lot of stuff, primarily because the Feds will have been forced to acknowledge and abide by the Tenth Amendment. If folks don't like what policies their state is enacting in connection with a particular issue, like, say, same-sex marriage, then they are free either to try to effect change in their state through legislation or move to another state whose laws more closely reflect their beliefs. Hello, Republic! A confederation of independent states who are free to follow the will of their citizens, not the sometime-well-intentioned-but-often-cuckoo citizens of Soviet Socialist Massachusetts or Pelosi-world.

You may not be aware of the fact that I was -- fairly recently -- a strong opponent of term limits. I believed institutional memory to be a very important component of orderly government -- we shouldn't have to re-invent the wheel time after time after time simply because no one was in Congress or the Governor's mansion who could remember what happened the last time someone came up with the same boneheaded idea, or how badly its implementation failed. Today, I simply don't care. There are too many boneheaded ideas floating around this ol' world to prevent their redundancy, so opposing term limits is no longer on my radar.

The notion of needing to devise some reasonable facsimile of term limits brought me to the election of our Republics' representatives in D.C. -- so, let's just get all Constitutional about it and return to the Founding Fathers' notion of true "public servants" in which people are called to serve their fellow citizens for a brief amount of time, not to make a career of meddling in the lives of every citizen.

We can retain the Constitutional requirements for eligibility to serve (e.g., age, natural-born citizenship, residency) -- they're pretty sensible. But as for the actual "election" -- there will be no further federal elections.

We're going to have a National Public Service Lottery.

Every eligible U.S. voter (eligibility to be determined by each state) will be required to purchase two lottery tickets: one each in the POTUS/VPOTUS Scratch-off in which only two tickets have all the magic numbers (indexed to population or voter registration; details and cost to be worked out later), but the Presidential Powerball Number on one ticket wins the White House and the runner-up moves into One Observatory Circle at the U.S. Naval Observatory as VPOTUS, both for the Constitutional term of four years. No one may win the POTUS/VPOTUS Scratch-off more than two terms in a row.

Additionally, the eligible voters of each state and territory will be required to purchase similar lottery tickets for Senator (lotteries to be staggered to accommodate rotating 6-year terms) and Representative: one winner per slot per state.

Of course, we'd have to do away with the Electoral College and replace it with a Commission of Electoral Inspection to determine the qualifications and eligibility of winners. The Commission could be composed of 3 members (to have a tie-breaker), appointed, one apiece, by the President, The Senate, and the House of Representatives. Vacancies occurring in Congressional office could be filled by vote of the vacant office's State Senate; presidential succession would be in effect until the following lottery.

Would there be a chance for cheating or corruption? Of course. Is there now?!?! (Hello, ACORN.) Would some mind-numbingly unqualified folks win the Public Service Lottery? Um, duh -- but what's the difference between that and the current system?

Could the loss of institutional memory be regretted, especially in the House of Representatives? Most probably. But, tinkering with the details could find a reasonable compromise to extend and rotate terms in the House, so let's not throw this idea out without trying it.

It's fun! It's a revenue generator! It's a regular fruit-basket turnover in D.C.!! It's Moogie's Revolutionary Plan for Public Service Reform in D.C.!

I've given you the bones -- now, hammer out the details.

It could work. And there would be no ads or robocalls! Someone needs to bust out some Petitions.

The Marketeers Are Out-clevering Themselves

Being the civic-minded citizen she is, Moogie often signs online petitions related to many diverse causes from the heathcare debate, to the resurgent cancer of organized labor, to women's issues, and beyond (after checking out the cause beforehand, of course).

Occasionally, the organization that sponsors a petition will email a follow-up survey about the petition's content or the issue or whatever.  I usually don't mind responding to a brief survey if I feel that I won't be marrying myself to the organization by doing so.  No big deal.

Except.  Except when the organization moves itself into the fundraising field.  Even so, and rarely, I will contribute to a cause from time to time if I feel my little pittance will actually matter in advancing the cause I've adopted as my own.

But now the marketeers have come up with a new scam, and it has gotten Moogie to seeing red. 

The other day I received an email from one of those organizations about political issues, which ones I feel -- as a woman -- deserve a voice in DC, and why.  I decided to take the survey.  It was composed of thoughtful questions about significant issues and called for actual analysis before answering.  How, exactly, do I rank surreptitious efforts to regulate environmental issues rather than passing them through the legislative process?  Which is more important to me -- repealing healthcare or slowing Congress down from its breakneck speed of legislating-frenzy?  I spent a good 30 minutes thinking about, and crafting,  my answers.  Then I hit "Submit."  And the survey took me to a "You haven't donated yet" page.  And it wouldn't accept my survey form until I gave it a credit card.  So, I closed the window (actually, I did the virtual equivalent of slamming the window shut!) and vowed not only not to play with those people anymore, but also to be much more circumspect about who will be invited to play with me in the future.

That, folks, is theft by deception.  You're stealing my time by asking for my help and then trying to guilt me into ponying up the bucks.  You're stealing my time by leading me to believe that I'm participating in something worthwhile.  You're stealing my time without giving the disclaimer up front.

You're no better than a three-card Monty game, or the scammer in the French Quarter who bets you $20 he can tell you "where you got your shoes at."  You're as bad or worse than the folks in Nigeria/London who inform you that you've hit the Nigerian lottery/become co-heir by default to a huge fortune, and that you can claim the spoils by providing the correspondent with your banking deposit information/a contribution to offset costs of probating the estate.

So, here's fair warning, Good Causes and your Marketeers: it won't fly anymore at Moogie's Mansion.  Don't keep doing it and risk ruining it for all the other causes out there, because Moogie is just about to the point of cutting all of you off from her time as well as her money.

And, that you can take to the bank.