The presidential campaign system is, much to the chagrin of election purists, working without even the smallest of flaws.
The trouble, of course, is that the new system really sucks.
But, what’s a population to do? We have to live with the political system we have, not the one we might want.
Of course there are strong elements of the dear departed political system that was replaced with this new one. Politicians still make stupid statements; calculate what and how they do things based on whether they’ll appeal to the narrowly defined “base.” Or narrow-minded base.
The main difference between the old and new system is gobs of money injected into the campaigns by a few super-duper rich guys. Like the gods of ancient Greece, they sit up high on their thrones (often in their Las Vegas hotels) trying to pick a new president – at least a Republican candidate so that they have ‘standing’ to go after President Obama.
They are putting millions and millions of dollars into the GOP primary race through their SuperPacs – the kind of exclusive organization that has a cadre of attorneys, political consultants, media producers and one member.
Very exclusive.
The new political system, as you can see is working perfectly just as the United States Supreme Court designed it. Huh? Yeah, the Supremes did this with their Citizens United case ruling that opened up the floodgates for those wanting to play Zeus’.
Money, the Court determined was speech; as in First Amendment “free speech.” They reasoned (kinda) that if some super-duper rich guy wants to use his money to campaign either for or against a candidate it’s perfectly okay.
The rich guys pounded on the new opportunity to speak out with their bank accounts literally flooding the GOP primary campaigns with enough cash to carpet bomb an opponent with TV commercials that, to say the least, aren’t particularly flattering.
And they’re not done. There are more primary elections to come and after those the big one: first Tuesday in November for the election to name our president for the next 4 years.
Zeus should get a real kick out of trying to buy that election, eh?
