This is a bit of a departure for the blog, since it deals mostly with technology topics. However, the ongoing soap opera that is the 2008 Presidential Election has got me frustrated and after reading some great articles I think I've got a fantastic change to how elections should be run.
As a preface, you may want to read this great NPR article that my good friend Russ Page turned me on to. You can read the article here: What We (Still) Don't Know About Obama and McCain
For those of you too busy (or lazy) to read it, I'll summarize really quickly. NPR's Ron Elving argues that the debates up to this point have really given us no real information on McCain or Obama's campaign. They manage to skirt around any specific questions addressing policy and most moderators (read: Tom Brokaw) don't feel compelled to force a direct answer.
In particular Elving addresses the fact that neither candidate has given any indication of who would fill their cabinet positions. I think this is even more important with some of the tasks these cabinet members would be given. I am interested to know who each candidate would appoint as Secretary of the Treasury, now given the task of using the ridiculous $700 billion bailout just passed. I would like to know who Obama would appoint as Secretary of Defense, as I feel this is one area he seems weakest. For McCain, I'd like to know who would be Secretary of State, and how he feels his administration would address some of the international image issues our country faces. As these people often dictate national policy, all voters should be interested and concerned over who the candidates plan to appoint. Elving also points out that this should even extend to Supreme Court Justice nominations.
I would love to see Elving's ideas implemented. However, I think this should be taken a step further. The idea of a campaign is to to educate voters on why the candidate is the best choice. Unfortunately, under the current campaign system we get absolutely no concrete information on what the candidates are actually going to do during their tenure as President. We get lip service to curbing government spending, securing borders, pulling out of or winning the war in Iraq, or fixing our lagging economy. The one thing I don't hear are concrete plans for actually doing this.
And that is where the current election, and every previous one, has failed. The candidates should be creating a plan for the country for the next 4 years that includes concrete appointments and concrete ideas. Who would be some of their major cabinet appointments (and can we hold a candidate to appointing from this list)? What specifically would they do to address the national healthcare? How would they address social security and what financial projections would their solutions actually create? Do they actually have a plan for winning or successfully withdrawing from Iraq?
If you visit either campaign website, www.barackobama.com or www.johnmccain.com, you'll find a large portion of the site dedicated to 'The Issues.' Each outlines what they feel are the most important topics of the campaign, and list how they will address those issues. Upon closer inspection, what you really find is that there is almost no actual information about what their plan is. The great majority of the time each websites simply states the supposed results their plan will bring. What they don't discuss is what the plan actually is. Below are actual excerpts from each site.
Obama and Biden will level the playing field for all businesses by eliminating special-interest loopholes and deductions, such as those for the oil and gas industry.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/fiscal/
John McCain believes we should send a strong message to world markets. Under his plan, the United States will be telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to an end - and the impact will be lower prices at the pump.
http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/relief.htm
Both these statements do not given any specifics on how they plan to accomplish this, just the intended result. Even when either side does specific a particular piece of legislation they want to change, there is rarely any specific course of action that is given. Everything is wrapped in a nice blanket of generality, preventing anyone from making a truly informed decision. I suppose this allows the candidate to prevent his opponent from using any specific idea against them. The losers in this campaign of generality is the American people.
My solution is to follow Ron Elving's advice. We need concrete plans from each side that all Americans can read to make an informed decision on who he/she believes can best lead this country for the next four years. I propose in this bill they focus on some specific items listed below. Each of these items should include an actual plan plus financial projects (where applicable) or a breakdown of expected results and when we can expect those results.
- Cabinet Appointments
- Economic Policies
- Sub-prime Plan
- Social Security
- US National Debt
- Taxes (honestly, how can Russian manage to implement a flat tax-rate and we can't?)
- Poverty/Welfare
- Foreign Policy
- Iraq War
- Fight against Terrorism
- America's Global Image
- Relations with (potentially) hostile countries (Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela)
- Education
- Health Care
Luckily, with the availability of information on the Internet we have more information on the two candidates than we've ever had. Naturally, each tries to show their positions on specific key policies, but we need more than positions.
I don't want to know that John McCain plans to reform the health care system by introducing more competition to make it easier to get coverage and foster better quality. I want to know his plan of action for creating the competition. His belief means nothing without the details on how he plans to introduce this competition.
I don't want to know that Barack Obama feels we need to amend the North American Free Trade Agreement. I want to hear his course of action for actually doing it.
I commend Obama for his Blueprint for Change (you can download it on his website). It's the closest I've seen to try to give a concise overview of a campaign. However, similar to each website, in the end it winds up being largely a statement of position and not as Senator Obama claims, that it "lays out very clearly how I will achieve these goals for the American people."
Without giving us an actual plan of action, neither campaign is giving us anything that truly explains the steps each plans to take to carry out the change that each is so adamant to mention. Without a specific course of action, the American people cannot hold our next President accountable for the promises he made. And without that accountability, no change in Washington can truly be carried out, no matter how much each candidate claims otherwise.
* Let me know why I'm an idiot or a genius or what I may have missed in the comments.
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