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With the US elections beginning to get into full swing i wanted to ask you intelligent people here what your thoughts are on the whole process.
As most of you know i come from Australia and we have a Westminster System. I am not completely familiar with the US system as i have not been a part of the process. So as you may imagine it does seem to me to be somewhat confusing, and to an extent drawn out. Now before im accused of being anti American i stress that im not having a go at it. Just asking. Im sure the Westminster System may confuse some of you.
What are your thoughts on the presidential primary elections? Is this process fair? Does it give the early states (Such as Iowa and New Hampshire) too much weight in the process? It appears to me that by the time some states carry out their primaries it may be a meaningless and pointless exercise.
Do these early states give an accurate representation of the general population wants in a candidate?
Is there any credence at all to having a single day National Primary?
The process appears to be weighted towards the candidates with the big bucks to spend on huge media campaigns.
I happen to believe, as Churchill did, that our system is the worst one in existence... except for all the others.
The election system is indeed drawn out, but that is mostly because of recent efforts to "reform" the system... the McCain-Feingold law, as it is known here. The idea was to bring greater control to how the candidates raise money and how donations are made. However, because of various campaign finance laws, it has become necessary for the lection system to start earlier in order for the candidates to raise the money they need to run. The fault is with the attampt to "fix" the system, not with the system itself.
Our system does have several advantages over the British parlimentary system.
1) We get to vote for an actual person for office, rather than a party which then chooses whoever they want for the specific office (whether the voters like that person or not).
2) We get to skip the whole coalition-building thing and get right down to the business of running government.
3) We get to maintain the separation of powers that has been discussed above by others.
4) The lack of popularity of a single individual does not necessarily spell doom for an entire party or political philosophy in our system. In the British system, if a particular PM is disliked by the public, the only way for the people to get rid of him is to vote the ENTIRE PARTY out of office... which is often contrary to what the people really want to accomplish. For us, if you don't like President Bush, you can just not vote for him again, without having to vote against the entire Republican party to get rid of him. It is a more direct voting process, at least in that sense.
5) Our electoral system allows smaller states to maintain a level of influence and representation in the political process, while at the same time acknowledging tat they are indeed smaller than other states. We walk a fine line between equality of states and consideration of population size. I think that's an important part of our political system that many followers of the British parlimentary system miss.
So these are a few reasons that I think our system works well. Whether it is BETTER or WORSE than any other democratic electoral system should be judged by the results. It works well in the UK, Canada, France, Japan, Australia and other places. It faces more difficulty representing the entirety of the population in places like Israel, India, much of South America, much of Europe and elsewhere. So the jury is out on which system is "better".
The bigger question of course is what control does the President exercise to check Congress ? I'd say the veto power or to sign legislation into law is a powerful and necessary tool . The President is also authorized to receive ambassadors and other public ministers. This became a big issue in the 1790s over the Genet Affair .
Anyway this issue of how to choose a President was debated at the Constitutional convention and the founders came up with the electoral college as the compromise between those who wanted the President selected by popular vote ,and those who wanted the President selected by Congress;or even the extreme view of Hamilton who wanted a President elected for a life time .
Quote:
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
I believe the President should be appointed by congress and serve their wishes; in turn, the wishes of the people.
Well because I don’t like the names “House of Lords and the House of Commons.” And I do like the terms of office for Senators and Representatives. Separation of powers, in this instance means in opposition to. It is based on the premise that as soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness, equality ceases, and then commences the state of war. On the other hand Rousseau’s premise is that man is naturally good and is corrupted by society. According to Rousseau, the powerful rich stole the land belonging to everyone and fooled the common people into accepting them as rulers. Rousseau’s solution was for people to enter into a social contract. They would give up all their rights, not to a king, but to “the whole community,” all the people.
Sounds like you want a system similar to ours. We have the upper house (Senate) and lower house (House of Representatives) elected by the people who in turn elect a leader (Prime Minister). I'm sure you already knew this but i'm interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks! Very interesting.
Maybe it is because its all i know but i do like our system down here. I am happy to elect a local member for parliament to represent me on all issues including who the leader of the country will be.
I think probably the most fundamentally wise thing the founders designed into the system was the tripartite structure, combined with strict separation and delineation of powers between the branches. A strong, but strictly constrained (primarily by Congress' power of the purse) Executive Branch is vital, I think. If you think Congress is venal now, imagine what they would be like if they had ALL the power? Unfortunately, we no longer have to imagine what an Executive would be like who believed that HE had all the power.
It's easy to enumerate the flaws in the process as it presently exists. What's not so easy is to design an unambiguously better one, and convince enough of those with vested interests the present system to support it, or even to tolerate a change.
In general, I think the diversity in the way that the various states go about it is probably a good thing, and keeps the shortcomings of any one method from completely dominating the process. It does seem to keep the outcome from being too predictable, and therefore completely uninteresting. I was thrilled to see Hillary's "inevitability" strategy destroyed so completely in the very first contest. I was also thrilled that Obama didn't run away with New Hampshire. I was also happy to see Romney get his TWO (count 'em!) drubbings, and witness McCain's resurrection from the dead. Now we might actually have a real campaign, at least between now and "Super Tuesday".
To the extent that an analogy between Politics and Sports is appropriate, the games that are the most fun to watch are those with some big surprises in them. That was one of the problems with the old "smoke-filled room" method. It was great fun for the participants, I'm sure, but the public never saw anything but the final score. Actually, it was worse than that. They didn't even find out what the score was, just who won.
Couldn't rate your answer but you make some very good points. Made a lot of sense as usual.
But just a quick one. Shouldn't a federal election be more about being fair and efficient as opposed to being fun to watch and exciting for the public? It sort of seems that you like this process because it is almost like watching a Hollywood movie?
For the record though i am really enjoying watching it on the news over here. I get all your news networks on our Pay TV provider and ill admit that it is good to watch, although when im watching some of the candidates i have to check what channel im on because i swear i must be watching Young and the Restless or Bold and the Beautiful
I happen to believe, as Churchill did, that our system is the worst one in existence... except for all the others.
The election system is indeed drawn out, but that is mostly because of recent efforts to "reform" the system... the McCain-Feingold law, as it is known here. The idea was to bring greater control to how the candidates raise money and how donations are made. However, because of various campaign finance laws, it has become necessary for the lection system to start earlier in order for the candidates to raise the money they need to run. The fault is with the attempt to "fix" the system, not with the system itself.
Good post Elliot. I do agree somewhat with your point about with the British system if a PM is not well liked then that can basically spell doom for an entire government. It certainly can as was seen down under here at our recent federal election. The thing is though that the PM represents his / her parties policies. He is the boss. The party as a whole takes certain policies on certain issues. Much the same as your candidates too. So essentially you arent voting for the person themselves, you are voting for the policies they represent and that particular parties ability to Govern the country effectively.
Does money and raising funds play too big a part in your process? It does in any election i know, but it does appear to be particularly apparent in the US. As i read the other day, "a presidential candidacy is only ever over when they have rub out of funds". Is this how it should be?
4) The lack of popularity of a single individual does not necessarily spell doom for an entire party or political philosophy in our system. In the British system, if a particular PM is disliked by the public, the only way for the people to get rid of him is to vote the ENTIRE PARTY out of office... which is often contrary to what the people really want to accomplish. For us, if you don't like President Bush, you can just not vote for him again, without having to vote against the entire Republican party to get rid of him. It is a more direct voting process, at least in that sense.
Elliot
This brings me to one more question that i have wondered. With the maximum two term Presidency policy you guys have does it bother any of you that it doesn't allow you to kick someone out. You don't get the chance to say "hey, you've had your time, you've done an ordinary job of late and where gonna show you". You don't get a chance at the next election to prove at the ballot box that you don't agree with his policies and want him and his party out.
What i'm getting at is i suppose that recently John Howard stood for what i think would be his fifth term as leader had he won. However his popularity was wavering and he most of his policies were very much against what the public of Australia wanted. Most Australians are against the Iraq war, most Australians are against the massive changes he made to our Industrial Relations laws. He did this after his last election win without a clear mandate (he lost many seats at the previous election on these issues). So Australians went to the ballot box this time and showed him and his party just how much they were against these issues. They lost in one of the biggest land slides in history. John Howard became only the second sitting PM in history to lose his own seat. The response was overwhelming that the public were against him and his parties policies.
Subsequently that party has admitted that they got many things wrong and they will listen to the people. They are now in agreeance with the new government polices to wind back IR laws and remove troops form Iraq.
Only every four years, or every two years if you count the off-year congressional elections. Yeah, it would be nice sometimes to be able to hurry their exit.
Only every four years, or every two years if you count the off-year congressional elections. Yeah, it would be nice sometimes to be able to hurry their exit.
But essentially this year you dont get a chance to kick Bush and his policies out do you. He goes no matter what. It isnt the people who show him what a bum job (if thats what they believe of course) he has done. See what im getting at?
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