Win

Political Reform
The Ability To Win

When you speak to the leaders within the major political parties, they will tell you that they select their candidates based primarily on one quality - the ability to help their party to win.

They take polls of people who vote in elections to determine what their concerns are. With this information, they have professional speech writers weave this information into extremely persuasive sales pitches. It resembles a Madison-Avenue production.

They are driven by big money interests and have a budget in excess of $100,000,000.00 annually. They are obligated to their donors. We are prevented from getting to know their candidates on a more candid level.

The result of this is that the candidates frequently have an artificial quality, with personalities that are argumentative and competitive. Their personalities are strong in salesmanship, but weak in problem solving ability.

Most of the people I have spoken with are unhappy with either major candidate, and simply vote for the better candidate, or don't vote at all.

Sadly, a great many people who would be wonderful for the job are left by the wayside. They are unwilling to endure the immense social pressures necessary for a campaign.

You may have met people in this category. They might have been a teacher, a friend, or a neighbor.

If you delve behind the scenes in a political party, the delegates often act like a mob of crazy clowns. Many years ago, we actually saw that being played out on television. Currently, this is usually filtered out and we see a rehearsed and polished version.

Frequently, the people in political parties have unusually high energy, but too often their motivation has a neurotic basis. We need to allow as many people as possible to participate by removing the energy and financial factor. The internet will facilitate this process greatly.

In my wanderings through life, I have found that by far the majority of the people I have encountered are very troubled by the

problem, but they are unable to define clearly the cause or the solution. They have felt helpless to do anything about it, thinking that it is simply a price that we have to pay to have a democracy.

Many people complain that political speeches and debates are boring despite the fact that the candidate is usually highly animated and talks about issues everyone is concerned with. Why is that? No matter how much a candidate practices, his speech will always sound like a sales pitch because that is what it is: another attempt to gain votes.

Consider an opposite example: If you haven't already, rent the movie: "Amistad." The film is much more about political values than violence. Anthony Hopkins plays our fifth president, John Quincy Adams, and at the end of the movie, delivers a speech that will likely move you to tears. The President speaks of people taking passionate action in a cause without material interests. It is inspiring because it is from the heart.

We often discount the importance of that part of the human soul which relates to truth, justice, and other higher values, and when someone is able to touch us in a special way in that regard, it is a very moving experience.

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