This is an election year. Not just any election, but the Presidential election. The big one. Thought I’d tell you in case you haven’t noticed the media circus swirling around us daily.
As always on such an election year, I find myself surprised by the voters. People rarely seem to care about the issues a candidate represents. Voting for a specific candidate, for many, isn’t an intellectual choice. They don’t examine the issues, check the candidate’s political record and align their choice with the person who will most likely carry out their agenda. Politicians and their advisors know people vote with their gut and not with their brain. Often, when a Joe or Jane voter is asked why he or she will not be voting for a certain candidate, his or her response is, “He doesn’t seem like the type of person you can have a beer with.” What?! I don’t want a president with whom I can sit idly for an hour and drink beer in local bar, chatting casually about the weather and our children’s soccer games. I want a president with knowledge and experience. I want a person who is brilliant and capable. I want him or her to use big words that I don’t know and later have to Google. I want to be convinced this person is worthy of leading this country I call home.
But unfortunately, issues, voting records etc. are rarely considered. Instead we’re faced with a three ring act of each candidate trying to prove they are beer worthy. Millions of dollars are spent pressing flesh, kissing babies, pretending to bowl and flinging proverbial feces until one sound bite sodden candidate is deemed The One. He (yes, always a he) then proceeds to the White House where he is able to carry out the agenda of all the billionaires who’ve contributed to his campaign.
So, since our current election system seems to be in need of a bit of repair, I’d like to make a modest proposal of how we can, maybe not improve it per se, but at least make it more interesting. During the presidential election we should gather all the candidates and make them fight it out to the death Hunger Games style. Two weeks prior to the election we would have a “reaping” where all presidential candidate volunteers would be taken to a specially designed bio-dome staged with various traps and perils. They would be given a weapon of choice, given some training and expected to survive the deathly challenges found in the dome along with fighting the other candidates to the finish. Corporations, lobbies, special interests and bored billionaires can pay exorbitant amount of money to help their candidate of choice by having food, water, weapons, medications and other necessities delivered to them in the dome. In the end, the lone victor would become our president. Of course, the general population wouldn’t be any better off, but we’d sure be interested. And is it really that different than what we have now?
