National Election Bee

[sunspot]

I would like to propose a better way to chose a president, based on the National Spelling Bee, called the National Electron Bee. The way it would work is that the process would begin at the voting district level. Anyone who meets the criteria for running for president can run. At this first level all the competitors posture their positions and ideas, etc., and a champion is chosen among them. After this first level of competition, all the people that ran for president but did not win, become coaches to their champion. In my experience, most people have good ideas about one or two areas but not about all areas. By having all these coaches, the voting district champion will have the benefit of their collective wisdom for the future competitions

 

The voting district champions will then compete for the city district championship. The winner then has all the other city district champs as he or her coaches to help prepare them for the city championships, etc. Elected officials in office can enter the competition. They do not have to compete until the level of competition, parallel to their level of office. For example the governor does not have to compete until the state finals, although he could begin the process earlier, for practice.

 

The final competition will be among the national regional champions each with their semi-finalists coaches. The person who wins is the president, second place is vice president, etc., the rest of the finalists will become members of the president's cabinet. In my humble opinion I would be satisified with any presidents who goes through this much training. The process would have to begin maybe one year into a presidency, since it would take at least three years of training to groom the best people for the most important jobs in the world.

[Jim]

I would like to propose a better way to chose a president' date=' based on the National Spelling Bee, called the National Electron Bee. The way it would work is that the process would begin at the voting district level. Anyone who meets the criteria for running for president can run. At this first level all the competitors posture their positions and ideas, etc., and a champion is chosen among them. After this first level of competition, all the people that ran for president but did not win, become coaches to their champion. In my experience, most people have good ideas about one or two areas but not about all areas. By having all these coaches, the voting district champion will have the benefit of their collective wisdom for the future competitions

 

The voting district champions will then compete for the city district championship. The winner then has all the other city district champs as he or her coaches to help prepare them for the city championships, etc. Elected officials in office can enter the competition. They do not have to compete until the level of competition, parallel to their level of office. For example the governor does not have to compete until the state finals, although he could begin the process earlier, for practice.

 

The final competition will be among the national regional champions each with their semi-finalists coaches. The person who wins is the president, second place is vice president, etc., the rest of the finalists will become members of the president's cabinet. In my humble opinion I would be satisified with any presidents who goes through this much training. The process would have to begin maybe one year into a presidency, since it would take at least three years of training to groom the best people for the most important jobs in the world.[/quote']

 

Interesting but doesn't this give less populous states an equal chance to the more populous? Sounds good to me!

[Pangloss]

I would like to propose a better way to chose a president, based on the National Spelling Bee, called the National Electron Bee.

 

(sigh) Yet another example of the anti-Positron bias on this board.

[Jim]

(sigh) Yet another example of the anti-Positron bias on this board.

 

 

*groan*

[sunspot]

I am only offering an alternative. What wrong with discussing new things? What we currently have is a situation where the two political parties chose a handful of candidates for us. They chose who are the best one-sided entertainer, who will go along with their program and who will vote along pretermined and biased lines. The process, itself, is more connected to entertainment than education. The trump card is mudslinging, forcing us to chose exactly what is offered; the lessor of the two evils.

 

It would be terrible if education was more important than entertainment. If ability was more important than a party parrot, if the common good was more important than onesided thinking.

[Pangloss]

Well there's certainly nothing wrong with making suggestions.

 

I'm not sure if you're really training them to be good presidents, or just training them to be good at public speaking and debate.

[sunspot]

That is true. This is an important part of being president. But I guess I was trying to be more optimistic. I figured the collective training and coaching would open up the minds of the candidates. This process would isolate the candidates, somewhat, from partisian politics, since the coaching staff would be from both parties trying to work out a compromise platform for their champion, starting at the grassroots levels.

 

Along the lines of idealized political change, I have another idea. The majority of the tax revenue comes from the silent majority or the middle class and they only have indirect say as to where the money goes. The political parties and the lobbyists divide the pie among themselves.

 

Here is what we do. At tax time, the government sends everyone a one page summary of the National Budget. What the taxpayer does, is they take the amount of taxes they will pay and budget that money side-by side on the same form. For example, if one pays $5000 in taxes, they may give $1000 to defense, $ 1000 educations, etc. All these forms are added up and this become the budget guidelines for Congress. since the amounts reflect the acutal will of the people. If anything it would be a very interesting experiment to see how the two compare.

[sunspot]

If I was to predict what would happen if all tax payers, including business and corporations, were allowed to budget their tax dollars as a subset of the national budget, the special interests groups would put all their eggs in one basket to promote their cause. But since there is a spectrum of special interests it would sort of distribute out. The middle class, which does not lobby for itself would be more reasonable and would spread their money out to all the baskets with less drastic changes.

 

The question becomes whether Congress, who is used to partisian politics and the influence of special interests would be gutsy and creative enough to stick to the guidelines.