ELECTIONS
September 1, 2004
I don't trust anyone who runs for office, particularly the big office. I keep asking myself why anyone would do such a thing. Think about it. Why would someone actually seek such position? A private office I can understand, but a public one? Why would anyone want so much attention? I don't get it. Of course I believe that everyone wants, and probably needs, a certain amount of attention, from infancy on. But that much? It's one thing to want some attention, but to strive so hard to be at the center of it is something else again.
Like everybody else, I like to play psychologist now and then, which, to be honest, is what I'm doing now. In a way, it's like playing detective, because you're trying to uncover a mystery, one that's hiding somewhere in the mind. In this case, the mystery centers around motivation, specifically, a very focused motivation. And whatever the solution to this mystery is, I've got a feeling I'm not going to like it, that, once I uncover it, I'm going to say, "I don't care."
I mentioned somewhere in my book, One Year, that we're constantly trying to fill the holes in our soul, hollow places which the dynamic of Life seems forever more to be creating. If I go with this line of reasoning, I can't help but arrive at the conclusion that anyone running for a public office is trying to fill a big hole in their soul. But what could cause such a large crater in the middle of someone's psyche?
As I said, I don't think I really care what the cause is. The only thing do I care about is the fact that it's there, and these dudes running for the number-one public office both have one, and one of them is going to win the contest and be placed in that office. And that means we're going to have someone sitting in a seat of great power who got there because he was driven to it because of a great big empty place in the deepest regions of his soul. There's got to be a better way.
To begin with, I believe the power to elect a national leader is a power which should not reside in the hands of the general electorate, people like you and me. In fact, I think it's absurd that we have such power. It totally distorts the whole idea of representative government, one in which we elect someone to represent us, which means that, once we elect them, they do the actual governing, not us. And a necessary part of that governing should consist in selecting someone to preside over their meetings, i.e, their governing activities, a person referred as the president. Get it?
This is the essence of what it means to be represented. It's sort of like when you hire an attorney to represent you. He does the talking, not you. The only elective power the masses should have is the right to elect their local representatives, who, once elected, should have as one of their primary objectives the selection, from their own ranks, of a national leader. And since representatives are elected for a two-year term, the president they select should also serve for that same amount of time, two years. Whoever received the second largest number of votes would be the vice-president. Everything else, the Senate and the Supreme Court, could remain exactly as it is. The money alone that could be saved, not to mention all the hullabaloo and public rancor that seems to come literally out of the woodwork whenever national elections take place, would make it worth it. The bottom line is this: there is no way a national leader should be placed in an office of such prominence and power on the basis of little more than a national popularity contest.
Should such a system of choosing a president ever be implemented, one of its most beneficial side effects would be the increase of interest (and involvement) in local politics. As it stands now, I (like many others I've spoken to about it) don't even know who my local representative is. But if local elective power was the only kind I had, I would most certainly be aware of the identity of the person my district sent to serve in Congress.