No horse for Jayme

As you all know, I avoid voicing my political preferences on the Internet and have always encouraged you to do the same for many reasons. For this post, I'll break that rule ever so slightly in order to express my disdain with the grand illusion of democracy we call "the Presidential Election."

Bill Richardson for President.

Those 4 words charged me up for 2008 more than any others (besides "Johan Santana trade rumors..."). I believe in his diverse and worldly experience. I believe he's most equipped to lead an empirical debate on illegal immigration and the future our nation's workforce and education structure. I believe he's leading a state into the 21st century that is so rooted in old-style thinking, it allowed cockfighting until last summer (Mississippi is the final safe haven for enjoying this savage ritual).

But I'm not writing this as a Richardson supporter, but rather as a member of the 10-15% of Americans who has lost his Horse. Who's to blame? The Media? The voters? Bill Richardson? I don't think we can accurately answer this question without first eliminating the most obvious variable in campaign politics: money.

I understand that fundraising is, in its own right, a fair resume booster; it displays a candidate's ability to network, inspire, and surround yourself with competent people. But if you have $10, $20, $50 million more than your opponent, that money can buy more time to fend off attacks, explain one of your more complicated agenda items while your opponents' remain... complicated in the public view, or ram one of your simple stances down everyone's throat 10, 20, 50 times more (I hope that you hope that someday we can all hope for hope in this hopeful land of hope).

With no caps on private campaign spending to give each candidate a more equal-sized microphone and less time to woo voters with each state moving up its primaries, candidates only have to win over the media, which represents what? 0.6% of the American population? (If anyone has the real stat, please post it; I wanna know). It doesn't matter that no one trusts the media. These are the people that pick the soundbites you judge, that decide what commercial clips in Iowa will be broadcast over a 24-hour period on national cable. They decide. To some extent, they always will. And believe it or not, I don't hold it against them (we have to get our news somehow). But their insane level of influence only proves to me how important it is that we eliminate other variables like campaign spending. Give each viable candidate a similar-sized microphone. If it lets a few "I with free so-and-so from prison" crazies in just so the Bill Richardsons can finally be heard, I'm all for it.

Unfortunately, that's up to the very people that benefit from exuberant fundraising. So I guess we're all fucked... unless, of course, you truly believe in one of the "Top 7."

Well I don't. So I've sentenced myself to reading up on the remaining bobbleheads and deciding which one seems least likely to sign a law I wouldn't like. What an inspiring commercial THAT would make:

"Hi, I'm Secretary of State Bill Galvin, reminding you that this election includes some people that might... sign a law... that you think is, like, really bad n stuff. So uh... please vote."

*sigh*