Here’s a quick and effective fix for political “scampaigns,” official corruption, financial irresponsibility, Marion Barry and all the other major problems facing our democracy:
Let’s entirely remove party levers and labels from voting machines. Then we’ll alphabetically arrange the candidates on the left side and put the offices up for election on the right. Now, for voters who’ve done their homework, it’s a simple matter to match the best candidate to the appropriate office.
I suspect, however, that most voters will feel like slackers taking the SAT.
This will do two things:
First, and for a while, we’ll see some amusing results, with candidates winning races they weren’t running for (which won’t be any worse than what we’ve got now).
Second, voters will realize that, despite hopes to the contrary, ours is a self-government. Everything that happens is our fault, our opportunity, our pride and our shame. History says the bad guys win when good folks act like sheep. I say we slap ourselves awake before somebody else does.
