Imagine, for a moment, that the day before the beginning of the World Series the Texas Rangers' team plane crashed. Everyone on the 25 man roster died. It was a tragedy, but it's baseball, which must go on (unless there's some sort of labor dispute or a massive world war to get in the way).
The Rangers decided to field a team. But they didn't just go get the best guys in their farm system and say, "Hey, let's give this a shot, see what we can do." They looked around and said, "Hey, we've got to put together a team to play a seven game series. We don't have to worry about anything after that."
So they went and got every player they could find who gave them a crazy, hail-mary chance to win it. They grabbed all the talented flamouts. They grabbed all the pitchers who could throw 102 MPH but only had a fifty-fifty chance of hitting the strike zone. They grabbed all the sluggers who can hit the ball for a mile but swing at everything and miss most of it. They grabbed all the head cases that could never stick it out in a big league clubhouse for an entire 162 game grind.
Then, just to be sure, they found a couple wily veterans who bring nothing to the field, but are really, really good at enforcing order in the clubhouse.
Meanwhile, the Giants hadn't been paying attention to these developments. They were thinking, "Well, it's going to be a walk, but there are still paying customers who want to be entertained." So the day before Game 1 of the series they sent Matt Cain, Aaron Rowand, and Javier Lopez over to the Rangers clubhouse with a note that says, "Just to keep things interesting.
But then something magical happened. Those 102 MPH fastballs stayed in the strike zone. Those sluggers who can hit it a mile connected more often than they missed. Those head cases combined to create a fun, carnival atmosphere that kept everyone on loose and looking forward to the next game. And Cain, Rowand, and Lopez played like they spent the entire season on the Rangers.
The Rangers won a game. Then another. Then another. And soon the impossible seemed possible. A team that had literally had nothing going for them and had literally scraped together a roster made up of anyone who could pick up a bat, ball, or glove was one win from the World Series Championship.
All they cared about was that one more win. After that they could go home and celebrate...
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The problem with this, of course, is that we all know that, ultimately, baseball doesn't matter. We can rejoice in such an unlikely story of tragedy, adversity, and success (well, other than the bit where a bunch of people died to start it off). We also know (especially the Cubs fans out there), that the best thing about baseball is the reminder that once the Series is over and another team has won you just have to wait until the magic words "pitchers and catchers report" mean it's starting all over again.
After the baseball season is over everyone goes home. They turn the lights off in the stadium, mop up the floors, and wait for it to start all over again. In the end it changes nothing substantive in the world. Some people buy commemorative t-shirts, some people say, "We'll get 'em next year."
But now we have to worry about Michele Bachmann's threats to throw every possible allegation at Obama and keeping a merry-go-round of impeachment proceedings gumming up the works coming true. We have to worry that Eric Cantor's belief that "the will of the people" is actually the stupid fucking talking points he seems to be unable to get beyond will drive a legislative session.[1] And those of us sad sacks who make up the non-governing segment of the population will get to live through it.
The real problem here is that I can honestly see no solution to this problem short of completely blowing the system up. I'm not calling for armed revolt or separatist fantasies. I'm saying that a two-party, winner-take-all system that's completely driven by monied interests is totally incapable of producing anything other than gridlock and politicians who are wholly-owned subsidiaries of special interests.
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So here's my proposal:
First: real campaign finance reform. TV stations are required to set aside a certain amount of time for electioneering. The time must be evenly distributed (yes, evenly. As in, every hour the Democratic candidate gets one ad, the Republican candidate gets one ad, and if the Green Party and the Libertarian Party have candidates, they get one ad). All election coffers come from public funds and the money is distributed equally. This might seem onerous, but since the vast majority of campaign cash is spent on TV ads we've already partially taken care of that problem. Also, the government puts a shitload of money in to the hands of candidates already, so whatever.
Second: an official non-partisan watchdog organization. If a candidate makes a truth claim in a commercial or a debate everyone knows that they can go to www.uswatchdog.com or whatever and see the point and whether or not it is verifiable with links to appropriate sources of information.
Third: get rid of the winner-take-all election approach, at least in the House. This is the hardest one to conceptualize, at least in a country as large as the United States. I visualize a parliamentary system, where the Democrats, the Republicans, the Greens, the Libertarians, the Rent is Too Damn High, the Tea Partiers, and anyone else who can get enough votes gets a proportional representative body. No one, then, is a majority, and if you want to govern you actually have to figure out how to form a coalition government and work with the other side. The problem is that right now the Republicans have zero incentive to work with anyone else. And we're seeing the results of that lack of incentive right now.
EDIT: I forgot one: Take congressional districting out of the hands of local officials. Seriously. It's the year 2010 and we're still letting local elected officials draw squiggles on maps to decide who gets what district? That's utter BS. Here's what we should do instead: use computers. Done. Run a statistical best-fit model of a district. If your state has 10 congressional districts the computer will draw up ten congressional districts based on population density models. Hell, it can even factor in a rural/urban divide if need be (but I actually think it would be better if it didn't). No more of these bullshit, gerrymandered districts with safe seats. Every two years Congress is up for grabs. If the incumbents suck, we throw the bums out. All of them.
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Meanwhile, I do have one hope. It's possible that we're looking at a replay of 1994. I mean, everything is in place. A supposedly lame-duck President and a resurgent Republican Party. Hell, we even have a Contract with America and Newt Gingrich playing power broker.
All it's going to take is Obama saying, "Okay, they aren't going to work with me, so fuck 'em." And since the Republicans didn't take the Senate and the Blue Dogs are basically a memory, that might happen. It would help if Harry Reid were to be asked to step down as Senate Majority Leader, though.
Also, I doubt that Obama's got a Monica Lewinsky scandal anywhere. Not that it will keep impeachemnt proceedings from starting somewhere...
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Of course even that hope is somewhat forlorn. After all, Clinton was followed by eight years of Gee Dubs. So even if Obama manages to get a shitload done we can pretty much assume that everything he does gets destroyed as soon as possible.
So, hey!
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[1]I genuinely want to punch Eric Cantor in the face every time that smug idiot appears on TV. He's incapable of deviating from a talking point. Yet he's supposedly one of the young, sophisticated, new generation Republicans? Really?
Last night he was on with Katie Couric. CBS had just showed an exit poll that said something like 83% of Republicans wanted the health care bill repealed, 53% of independents wanted it repealed, and 11% of Democrats wanted it repealed. The problem with this particular sound byte was that it had no nuance. I strongly suspect that the 83% of Republicans (most of whom, data seems to indicate, are Tea Partiers and people who currently qualify for Medicare, so they should really just STFU) really think that the health care bill is of the devil and needs to be repealed. I strongly suspect that most of the tiny minority of Democrats who want the health care bill repealed believe thusly because they're actual progressives who are pissed that it didn't go far enough. And I'd strongly suspect that the independents are somewhere in between. Some might be Libertarians, others might be Green party. Either way, Cantor pulled the "will of the people" talking point and said that the "will of the people" is to repeal the health care bill. Couric (to her everlasting credit) stopped him and said, "According to our exit polls 48% of voters want it repealed, but 47% of voters want it expanded. How can you say that repeal is the will of the people?"
Cantor's response was to say, "Well what about that graphic that you just showed? I think it clearly shows the will of the people is to repeal the health care bill." That's beyond fuck stupid. It clearly shows that the will of Republicans is to repeal the health care bill. But even at that they have a narrower margin than Democrats who want it kept in place. And, bear in mind, there was undoubtedly a strong representation of people who want the health care bill repealed who actually believe that it's all about death panels to kill grandma and all that other bullshit.
The sad truth of American politics is this: Americans are lied to by politicians and power brokers. Then when they vote according to whatever the loudest talking point is on that particualar day the very politicians and power brokers who lied to them in the first place say, "Well, I'm now going to govern by the will of the people." It's a profoundly broken system.
And I'd been so looking forward to all that hopey-changey stuff, too.
Damn, I knew they shouldn't have let Ron Washington and Josh Hamilton fly the team's charter. Josh's words might say "Jesus and AA and NA and puppies and kittens and Facebook.com", but his tats say "Jagerbombs and methlabs". Never trust a Ranger.
Posted by: The Everlasting Dave | 11/03/2010 at 10:52 PM
Might I add, I would like to go back to casting votes for President: the person with the most votes is President, the person with the second-most is Vice-President. Thus keeping all parties involved in the Executive Branch, rather than the exclusive domain or one party.
Posted by: DagoodS | 11/04/2010 at 08:41 AM
I dunno, DaggodS. Do you think that might provide incentive to assassins? I wouldn't mind seeing the Seventeenth Amendment repealed, myself. But Geds's parliamentary style House of Representatives idea is golden. This election was particularly disheartening for me, since all the State and Local initiatives went precisely opposite of how I voted. It's like I studied really hard for a test, and then got a 0%. Guess I'm out of step with the times.
Posted by: Janet | 11/05/2010 at 10:29 PM