Stop Wasting Your Vote!!!!

Tell me if any of these sound familiar:
If you don't vote for Bush, you're voting for Clinton!!
If you don't vote for Dole, you're voting for Clinton!!
If you don't vote for W, you've voting for Gore!!
If you don't vote for W, you're voting for Kerry!!
If you don't vote for McCain, you're voting for Obama!!
If you don't vote for Romney, you're voting for Obama!!
If you don't vote for Cochran, you're voting for Childers!!

For as long as I have followed politics, I have heard some variation of that siren song, luring rational conservatives to crash their ideological beliefs on the rocks of partisan politics. Many a person has held their nose and voted for the lesser of two evils, instead of voting by their conscience and "throwing away their vote."

In his Farewell Address, George Washington stated:

The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. (This is from an article by Dennis Jamison on the Washington Times Communities)

One would not have to think long for an instance of each of Washington's predictions in our modern political sphere. The current two-party system has locked power into the hands of party leaders and advisers, most of whom the general public couldn't name.

In my home State of Mississippi, this issue has once again raised its ugly head. Thad Cochran and his party Establishment thugs stole the primary runoff election from Chris McDaniel. There are multiple allegations of voter fraud that various state judges and county clerks are shoveling fast to cover up. There were audio recordings of horrid race-baiting calls and pictures of flyers all paid for ultimately by Cochran and his supporters. As door after door is closed by Barbour cronies on McDaniel's legal options, conservatives are being forced to face this question: Who do I vote FOR in November?

1) Vote for the GOP Establishment candidate that basically called conservatives bigots, even though he's only going to serve two years of his term before he retires and the Establishment picks his replacement.
2) Vote for the moderate to conservative Democrat candidate, trusting that he'll lose the seat in 6 years against a unified GOP. A side effect of this is that it helps keep Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader
3) Write in Chris McDaniel on the ballot, knowing that it not only will not count as a legal vote, but additionally will not even be counted and tallied at all.
4) Vote for Reform Party candidate Shawn O'Hara as a protest vote, admitting that he's a political gadfly who's run for close to a dozen seats, but never won an election. Additionally, he has a few positions that very few people will find palatable or agreeable.
5) Simply stay home. According to several sources, about 5 million GOP voters did this in the 2012 presidential election.

Of all of these options, #4 is the only one that doesn't play into the hands of the party apparatchiks. I have made the personal decision that I will never again cast my vote against a candidate. I will vote FOR the person that best represents me.

And I will be putting pressure on my State legislators to change both the open primary laws and the write-in candidate laws to ensure that we don't face this issue again.

A Proposal For Presidential Primary And Election Overhaul

Most Americans are already tired of talking about the 2016 election, since the media began discussing potential candidates about .0005 seconds after President Obama was declared the winner in 2012. And I believe most Americans are nowhere as enamored with political primaries and campaigns as the establishments themselves, along with the hundreds of managers, advisers, pollsters and reporters.

I read with great fury an article about the RNC attempting to shorten the 2016 primary season. Of course, the fact that the news is covering the 2016 primary in early 2014 is a little aggravating, but let's set that aside. The thing that infuriated me the most was the fact that the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries were again enshrined as being first in the nation. To be clear, I have no particular dislike for the citizens of these two states. But where, exactly, did the US Constitution grant them disproportionate influence over the selection of presidential candidates?

To answer my own question, the USC did not do any such thing. This system was set and agreed upon by the establishment politicians and power brokers of both major parties. I suppose that part of this is simply because they are lazy, and want to be able to utilize the existing networks in these states. However, I also believe that a large part is to allow the establishment itself to hold sway over the primaries. Let me be clear: I cannot stand and have no respect for establishment politicians and power brokers of either party. As a general rule, anything that they want should be immediately opposed, until a compelling reason can be determined and supported.

When the primaries for both the 2008 and 2012 elections finally came to my state of Mississippi, the candidates that I was most passionate about supporting had already dropped out. This essentially meant that I had to hold my nose and vote for someone I didn't really want.

With that in mind, I propose the following changes to the presidential primary and presidential election systems.

Presidential Primaries:

1. Divide the many states into two categories, large and small, based upon congressional representation.
2. Select, by blind lottery, two large and two small states to be the early primaries. These four states are removed from the rotation for the next 4 elections
3. Schedule the four primaries over a two month term, one election every two weeks, on a small, large, small, large progression.
4. Two weeks after the last primary, every other state holds their primary. The entire primary season lasts 10 weeks.
5. The delegates of every state are awarded based upon the voter results of their congressional district. No state may award based on a "winner take all" system.

Presidential Elections:

1. The entire nation has a synchronized 24 hour period where the polls are open. Polls open at 2pm in Hawaii, 3pm in Alaska, 4pm in Pacific, 5pm in Mountain, 6pm in Central, and 7pm in Eastern, and close at the same time on the next day. This removes any possibility of the media influencing voter turnout or voter decisions by reporting poll results or survey responses in the time zones that have already reached 7pm.
2. As in the primary elections, electors are awarded by their congressional district, with the exception of the two Senatorial electors who would be awarded by majority vote. This puts almost every elector from every state in play, instead of the current system where presidential candidates can and do make willful decisions to completely ignore the citizens of entire states because their victory road map does not require them. In addition, it also decreases the influence of metropolitan areas over rural areas. For example, Idaho has approximately 1.6 million citizens, but over half that number live in five cities.

As a side note, in case anyone asks about the Electoral College being abolished. The disparity between populous and remote states, as well as the disparity between urban and rural areas is the reason that the EC exists. Removing the EC would soon result in presidential candidates focusing only on a handful of metro areas and basically ignoring the majority of the nation.

Well, I've made my suggestion. I'd love to hear your feedback. My biggest point is that the establishments of both major parties like the existing system because it allows THEM power over our decisions.