New Political Party
From Wikideas
There is clearly a need for an alternative means of selecting our government representatives. The heart of the problem is that so much money is needed to successfully run an election campaign, that our representatives are beholden to those that provide the funds, not to the people who voted for them.
A second drawback to our present system is that people are often selected on popularity, rather than by character issues, which aren't necessarily apparent with the superficial contact the electorate has with the candidate during an election campaign.
My solution is to create one new political party that dominates the election process. The method of selection of this new political party candidates then becomes the de facto method of selecting our representatives, instead of attempting to change the rules and procedures of our current election system. By necessity, this new political party would be "platform neutral", having members of both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
Candidates would be chosen from conventions of representatives, thereby alleviating the money necessary for popular elections. Plus, since the candidate would be chosen from among their peers (the convention group), there would be much more of an ability for people to judge the candidate's character on a personal basis. Among the candidates selected, an additional convention could be held to select the president, much as current parlimentary governments select their prime minister.
The key to my proposal is how the representatives to the convention are chosen. The idea is that any citizen is free to choose an "Affinity Group", possibly of around 100 members. These groups would not be oriented by geography so much as by similar political ideas. The internet lends itself to this remarkably well. Each "Affinity Group" would select a representative for the convention, whose ongoing obligation would be to keep members of the group informed on political events. This could actually be a paid part-time job, much as City Council members are in small towns. The advantage to this system, in addition to providing government representaton without the expense of political campaigns and the increased intimacy of knowing the character of the candidates, is that people would now feel much more capable of participating in the political process. Anyone could join any number of political "Affinity Groups" or even start his own. Plus, if the desire was there, an individual interested in becoming involved in politics could easily achieve the goal of being elected as a representative of their group. Political decisions would then be made much more by people who have an interest in the field and would tend to make much more informed decisions.
