Is This Really the Best We Can Do?

A dozen years ago, the late P. J. O’Rourke said, “Don’t vote.  It just encourages the bastards.”  I cannot imagine what the political satirist would say if he were watching the current presidential campaign, but it might be unprintable.

In the last 48 hours alone, the poor American voter has been treated to the spectacles of Donald Trump selling Bibles while Joe Biden castigates the rich for not paying an elusive “fair share”, even as he charges folks $100,000 to have their pictures taken with him, Obama, and Clinton.  We should all note that the only other living president, George W. Bush, has wisely decided to stay distant from all this nonsense.

There is a third presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who evidently has spent the last 48 hours reshaping his tinfoil hat.  If there is a wacky conspiracy theory that Kennedy hasn’t endorsed, it is only because he hasn’t heard of it yet.  Without a doubt, the craziest theory he believes in is that he has any chance of actually being elected.

Are these really the three best men in America to lead the nation?  Obviously not, since according to a recent poll, a majority of Democrats want someone other than Joe Biden and a majority of Republican voters would prefer someone other than Donald Trump.  Think of that:  NEITHER candidate is the first choice of his own party members, yet somehow BOTH still have become their parties’ candidates.  There is obviously something wrong with the way our country’s parties choose OUR prospective leaders.

In case you are wondering, since Kennedy doesn’t really have a party behind him, we can only conjecture that the majority of his supporters would prefer a pony in their back yard.  I totally understand the impulse to vote for a third party candidate as a form of protest, but wouldn’t it be better to have that be a candidate who didn’t learn his science from the National Enquirer?

Ignoring the third and fourth-party candidates, why have the two major parties chosen two men that most of us would not buy a used car from?  Both men are clearly far too old and both have a long history of lying, plagiarism, and going back on their words.  Nor can either man really claim to be a leader since both are deliberately divisive, frequently calling voters who disagree with their policies such names as ‘ultra-MAGA” or “low information voters”.  Real leaders are uniters, whose first priority (not to mention several subsequent priorities) is something better than throwing red meat to their political base in an endless effort to attract campaign contributions.

Take the time to think about it for a few minutes.  Who would you really prefer to be our next president?  How do the two current major party candidates compare with your choice?  Personally, I can think of potential candidates in both parties who would make better leaders than any of the candidates currently vying for the office.  The reason why better candidates don’t end up as the eventual candidates is probably mainly a function of the way the political parties are run.

Political parties end up selecting candidates who are perceived as less suitable or effective for various reasons.  For too often, party candidates are not really selected by the voters but by the  complex interplay of internal party dynamics, including power struggles, factionalism, and influence from special interest groups.  These internal dynamics can lead to compromises and backroom deals that prioritize political expediency over candidate merit or qualifications.

Moreover, the candidate selection process within political parties often involves multiple stakeholders, including party leaders, elected officials, party elites, donors, and activists.  Conflicting interests and competing agendas among these stakeholders can result in candidates being chosen based on loyalty, fundraising prowess, or ideological alignment rather than their leadership abilities or policy expertise.

These various factors frequently end up resulting in a system in which the potential candidate is chosen by seniority.  A good example of this would be the presidential candidacy of Robert Dole back in 1996:  instead, it was widely viewed that he was chosen/should be chosen simply “because it was his turn”.

Party rules about selecting delegates—particularly in the Democratic Party—allow Party insiders to heavily influence who will eventually become the candidate.  In a proportional allocation system, delegates are awarded to candidates based on their share of the vote, allowing multiple candidates to accumulate delegates over time.  This can prolong the nomination process and give candidates with strong grassroots support a chance to remain competitive, even if they don't win outright in early contests.  Conversely, a winner-takes-all approach awards all delegates to the candidate who wins the most votes in a state or district, potentially allowing a front-runner to quickly amass a substantial delegate lead and secure the nomination early in the process.

Perhaps the most egregious sin of political parties is the practice of selecting superdelegates who are not bound by the results of primaries and caucuses.  These party elites, including elected officials and party leaders, have the autonomy to support any candidate they choose at the party convention, regardless of what the voters want.  Superdelegates have enormous influence—far more than their numbers would suggest—on whom the convention eventually selects as their candidates.

Until we change the current party system, we will probably continue to have elections in which we aren’t really voting for someone we want, but in which we are voting against the other party’s candidate.  

That’s no way to run an airline…or a nation!