American democracy is in trouble. How can the United States sustain a flourishing democracy when slightly more than half of those who are eligible vote in presidential elections? Andrew Jackson must be turning in his grave! What would Tocqueville think?
Cultural critics safely housed in their ivory towers rail on the apathy of the American electorate, but they seldom offer any constructive ideas for how to solve this problem. But before we completely give up hope, let me suggest a sure-fire way to get more people involved in the political process and save this great American experiment in participatory democracy.
Many states think they can get out the vote, or at least make the ballots of those who do vote more meaningful, by moving their presidential primaries to an earlier date. This is not the answer. Instead, we should do away with primaries altogether and invite anyone who wants to run for president to come to a convention center in one of six majors U.S. cities. Los Angeles, San Antonio, New York, Birmingham, Memphis, Minneapolis, and Seattle will do just fine.
In order to solicit public interest, this gathering should include all the candidates from the two major parties. Everyone from Edwards to Obama and Romney to Guiliani should be there. It should also include those seeking a nomination from one of America’s many third parties. And, just to make it interesting for television audiences, let’s throw Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Bob Dole, Ralph Nader, Al Gore, Jesse Ventura, Donald Trump, and Ross Perot into the mix.
Each candidate will then sit in a room with their fellow competitors until they are called to enter a staging area where they will be judged based upon their political views, their appearance and public presence, and, most importantly, their ability to belt out a Michael Bolton song (for male candidates) or an Aretha Franklin song (for female candidates).
In order to reflect our country’s diversity, the judges will include: an African-American music producer who used to play bass for the rock band Journey; a former Hispanic recording artist and former Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader; and, just to provide some international flavor, a pompous Brit who demeans the candidates in order to see how they might fare when they someday face tough questions from Helen Thomas, David Gregory, and the rest of the White House press corps.
These judges, by the way, will be appointed by Rupert Murdoch. There are two good reasons for this. First, the decision to appoint judges rather than have them elected by the people will honor those Founding Fathers who did not trust the masses to make wise decisions. After all, if the masses decided things at this early stage of the race you might end up with a president from Alabama who is prematurely gray, plays the harmonica, and will dance at the inaugural ball in a jerky kind of way that will embarrass most Americans. Or you just might send some untalented crooner to the White House who has a crazy hair-do and goes by the name Sanjaya.
Second, Rupert Murdoch gets to choose the judges for the simple reason that he and his corporate empire rule the world. It makes perfect sense.
By the way, this process should begin in January so that the one hundred or so candidates who make the first cut can go before the nation again during the February television sweeps period. What the heck, let’s make it even more interesting and send these early round survivors to Hollywood.
Once the candidates arrive in Tinsel Town, they will have to endure another flurry of political crossfire and perform two more songs. It is in this round where the American public will see which politician-crooner is best positioned to lead the free world.
Early prediction: Keep your eye on John McCain, who did a fabulous job covering Barbara Streisand tunes during a 2002 hosting gig on Saturday Night Live.
By March, the candidate pool will have been narrowed down to twelve and then the American people can finally get involved. Each week from here on out the presidential hopefuls will sing the chart-topping hits of a specific artist and discuss a political issue affecting the country. The possibilities for this kind of musical politicking are endless: Diana Ross and health care, Abba and the war in Iraq, Tony Bennett and gay marriage, Gwen Stefani and abortion, or Jennifer Lopez and immigration reform.
After their performances each night, a toll free number will be assigned to every candidate and average Americans will have two hours to vote somebody out of the race. (They can also text message their vote, but “standard text messaging rates will apply”).
By May sweeps, America will have two candidates to choose from. (This, of course, will require a constitutional amendment to move the election from November to May). In a big two hour finale, the candidates will have a final debate on the issues and, as a show of non-partisanship and good will, come together for a duet featuring a medley of Burt Bacharach songs. (Can’t you envision Rudy and Hilary, together, belting out a rousing rendition of “The Look of Love,” or “What’s New Pussycat?”)
By the end of the night we will have a new president. He or she will have more votes than any other presidential candidate in American history. There will be a framed multi-platinum album in the Lincoln bedroom, which will now be permanently occupied by Clive Davis. And our crisis in democracy will be over.