Elections, All Day Everyday

Once upon a time in our nation's history, two men would stand on something (a stump maybe?) at election time and give talks about how they felt about issues of the day. Then there would be a vote of the people and one was elected. Bingo! That was pretty much it.

Today it's grotesquely different, and I think, unsustainable.

If you want to win an important election today, you start years ahead of time. First, work against all census efforts that might hurt your candidacy and discourage voter registration for the same reason. It's important to have a governor of your persuasion in office and it may be necessary to redistict the area you wish to serve so that as many of your potential constituents are of your party as possible. (Florida is one of the most brazenly sliced up states in the Union.) And that's just for starters. A complete election manual for aspiring congressmen would be as thick as the Manhattan phone directory. It would cover the pre-game tinkering, the election itself and the all important post election battle, should the contest be close. Remember Gore v. Bush?

Let's think for a moment about pre-game activities. Of course, you will most likely want to purge the voter registration rosters of any undesirables like former prisoners or those who may have moved recently and not told the voter registration people. If it helps, move to permit servicemen and women a ballot that requires minimum authentication. Then it's time to scare as many potentially hostile voters as possible. Spread word that the police will be looking for scofflaws at the polls, or people behind on child support payments, or that people might have to pay a fee for something, anything, to discourage turnout. Pass a law, if possible, that will require picture IDs be presented along with voter registration cards. Maybe even send in State Police troopers before elections for some reason to intimidate people in certain districts, especially minority areas. Use robo calls too, to spread misinformation about polling sites being moved or just plain lies and innuendos. (Remember the ad featuring a pretty, white gal suggestively asking Harold Ford, a black congressman of quality and experience to "Call me up sometime, Harold" in order to fan latent racism wherever it could be found.) Get lots of people out to demonstrate near certain polling places. Tie up your opponent's telephone lines on election day. Whatever it takes.

This would also be a good time to line up some Texas zillionaires to run major dirty trick projects, like the Swift Boating of John Kerry. Look for a possible third party candidate who might siphon off a percentage point or two from your opponent. Ralph Nader elected G.W. Bush, you may recall. Maybe have another mogul challenge your opponent's citizenship or produce "evidence" that he went to grade school with Charles Manson. Alert friends in the media to make sure whatever you do has "legs." Slice up the rolls and send something to every segment to split off as many people, one by one, as possible.

The actual campaign itself is a thing of amazing complexity, requiring 18 hour workdays from hundreds of staffers who organize turn out, make sure that people not of their candidate's persuasion are stopped at the gate and that the crowd is in a state of screaming frenzy when the great man or woman finally arrives to speak. The event has to be picture perfect for the next news cycle or friendly newscasters will have to use file footage of a more telegenic previous event (by mistake, of course)to make things look wonderful. What a bizzness!

Now for the post game effort. Of course your candidate has teams of lawyers in all iffy counties and states to challenge voter tallies, demand recounts and round up friendly judges. These teams will be able to field busloads of outraged citzens acting "spontaneously," to intimidate vote recounting sites and posture for the press. Like riot squads, they should be prepared to deploy anywhere on a minute's notice, complete with placards, banners, etc. The objectives here are to delay the declaration of a winner as long as possible. If your party controls the Supreme Court, see if you can drive the case to Washington.

Regardless of the outcome of your election, when someone has finally won, delay state certification as long as possible. It will weaken the winner politically and financially before he/she even gets seated and sworn in. Never stop. Every move will disgust some future candidate and demonstate that any candidate must have boat load's of money. Then get some rest quickly and prepare for the next cycle. It's only two years away and there's lots to be done.

What I've described above is democracy run amok. The process is weakening our country and wasting huge amounts of money and legislative energy. Campaigns should be financed by the federal government and restricted to a period of 6 months at the very most.