It seems the same things happen every election. You have one rich candidate that just loads the airwaves with commercials. Most of these are negative commercials probably tested before audiences. Then you have the candidate backed by unions, the party, or some entity that wants something for their investment. They have a debate but there is nothing to get excited about. So one gets elected and they go about fleecing the public like the Bell city officials usually on a smaller scale.

Passive non-violent resistance. Don't go to work. Stay at home. Have few desires. Produce nothing. The parasites cannot feed when there is no greed.

Gotta put em in some sort of residence made of an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight.

Obama promised to accept public financing and then backed out when he found out how much money he could raise. Personally I do not think there should be any limits on campaign contributions especially from corporations.

I'm on it.

Talk Bill Gates into running and bankrolling a new party.

We have top men working on it right now.

A revolution.

Vote Democrats.

eliminate lobbyists...

repeal the new law allowing unlimited corporate support to campaigns.

allow all candidates TV debate time.

change the way money works, entirely.

Jiggs,

1) How do you define a lobbyist, and how do you eliminate them?
2) Are you familiar with the SC decision? Because that's not what it did
3) How do you propose making this work? What about any joe-schmoe who now wants to run for office? What about the fact that the majority of America isn't going to sit down to watch a debate? What about people who only use radio? It's not like politicians can't lie their asses off in debates
4) Oh ok.

I would committ suicide

also eliminating lobbyists is unconstitutional

Make it illegal for them to have access to representatives outside of a transparent town hall meeting set up by the lawmaker.

Please... So I guess all these people assume it wrong then?

"This decision was a terrible mistake. Presented with a relatively narrow legal issue, the Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president." - Russ Fiengold.

"the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case" and accused the court of opening the door to political bribery and corruption. - Representative Alan Grayson

"there's going to be, over time, a backlash ... when you see the amounts of union and corporate money that's going to go into political campaigns". - John McCain, who was "disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court and the lifting of the limits on corporate and union contributions"

"Today's decision was a serious disservice to our country." - Republican Senator Olympia Snowe

"The ruling especially hurts the ability of parties that don't accept corporate contributions, like the Green Party, to compete." - Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party

"With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars." - Ralph Nader

"The court has, in effect, legalized foreign governments and foreign corporations to participate in our electoral politics." - Pat Choate.

The final TV debates before the general election is what I'm talking about... Whether or not candidates lie isn't really the point, and up to the voter to decide. The point is fair exposure, not just for the top two dogs every four years.

That's right. He asked a question, I gave an answer. If you wanna worship a debt-based ponzi scheme, that's your prerogative. But it is at the very root of the problem.

There are too many people running to do this.

Put a JEEHAWD on the gubment.

But really, when was the last time passivity worked? Right. Therefore, revolution.

letting them get on with it seems to be doing the job

Do a barrel roll, imo.

Nice. I'm sure the OP meant reforming the system, though.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-b..._b_755441.html

Its a nice read, and I am heartened someone agrees with me Bush43 is very much similar to Andrew Jackson, and his impact on the Whigs and the Dems, and public perception of government and politics. The dude is a bit of a tea party shill, but the first 2/3 of the article is good. You want a serious answer, and there are only two to yoru question. Either one party dies, or someone rich, charismatic, and public minded enters the fray.

#1 something like this would absolutely never work. i refuse to believe having seen your other posts that you are naive enough to believe this.

#2 shocking that a bunch of political figures release soundbites completely misrepresenting a supreme court ruling (you know, an interpretation of whether or not a law is legal under our constitution).

#3 you will never get fair exposure. funding, among many other traits, dictate the exposure of a candidate. Politicians have (in Presidential elections) thousands of exposure opportunities, all which rely on funds.

#4 If you mean some sort of system where it is harder for governments to spend/borrow money, I'm all for it

How about we have all candidates in whatever field post an introduction and basic platform video on youtube, advertise with their facebook and twitter accounts and have a series of primaries online using these profile based social networking tools. All you'd have to pay for is a neutral party (the state {dum dum duhhhhhhmmm}) to sort the valid profiles using a predetermined method of qualification. Once you have a small field of "preferred" candidates, then you could open that group up to a balanced campaign system (using public $$, or with general acct donations). All this would take place in the months before the actual primaries.

Did I do it? Oh wait, I was supposed to break the system.

I do realize the cost of start-up would be significant given the number of elections offices there are in the country, but that cost would drop off equally significantly.

Ps. go ahead and run on this platform if you want.

thread should be retitled to 'how do we break the 2 party mentality' (imo)

1. lower the barriers to get on a ballot
2. strict (and somewhat short) term limits (including judicial branch...especially including judicial branch...in fact, they should be voted in)

the barriers to get on a ballot are waaay overstated as a reason for the 2 party system

edit -- they do exist, but i believe numerous other factors cause the 2 party

Voting in SCOTUS judges is ******ed and they should not have term limits

your local judges are voted in