It’s definite 100412

The first debate in the obscenely expensive 2012 presidential campaign is over.  According to the pundits: the Blues won, the Reds won, it was a tie.  What is definite is that the people lost.

The people should have been enlightened on each candidate’s position and the country’s future direction under their respective leadership.  After all the cost of campaign 2012 is expected to exceed two billion dollars not counting special interest spending not monitored.  That money could have been applied to the national debt and the people spared the almost two year pointless, political harangue. 

Consider a possible October campaign season where the candidates can spend only a million each.  Such a campaign would be just as beneficial to the people as the present system.  Why not?  Because political campaigns are now big business, where bigger businesses get the candidates they can afford.

Presidential debates waste time and money and should be considered more like reality TV entertainment than a productive democratic process.  It is little remembered but a feminist group, to attract attention to its agenda, staged the first TV debates.  According to serious analysis of that debate, Nixon won but Kennedy looked sexier on TV.  From that precedent debates have been a downhill run for “good TV.” Candidates merely justify a video opportunity and issues are unimportant.  Networks like debates because they are cheap to produce and they don’t have to pay the talent.  Special interests like the debates because they get national exposure of their banners.   Political consultants like debates because they get big buck employment and can always blame the candidate for failures.  The people are bored by debates since nothing is said and truth is a UFO. Candidates probably hate debates because it wastes time better spent at home with their family. Cosmetologist, Tailors and set designers love debates because they get signed photos to hang in their establishments.

The people would be better served if the candidates just sent them sign photos and forgot the meaningless rhetoric.

Advertising agencies, media pundits and spin doctors also love debates because they can now generate some real “horse race” excitement without trying to explain boring political stuff. 

The people have lost the prerequisite of democratic elections, the right to be an informed voter.  Since it is now a horse race why not open a two dollar betting window to pay off the national debt?  Ill informed voters would flock to the windows to cast their vote for a chance at an after tax return of one dollar.  Two-dollar betting could replace an antiquated and expensive election system.  The voice of peoples’ collective bets  just might be heard over the roar of big buck donors.