Washington File

Yo Matt

When we vote in Canada the person who gets the most votes gets to run the country, not the guy with the fastest lawyers. A democracy? Give your head a shake, any semblance of a democracy went out the window when President Bush(really Cheney)took office.

How can we slam the U.S. for their style of politics? We don't even have the option to vote for our own Prime Minister.

Is there actually one logical person in this world who honestly believes that the American way of electing a president represents the best democracy has to offer? Really?

Hundreds of millions are spent by each leading candidate in both parties, just to be the one candidate that then gets the approval to spend hundreds of millions more to contest an election. What a waste of money.

Now, our Canadian political system is far from perfect, and I do agree that our government has no business telling another government how to run things. To stretch that logic to suggest that individual Canadians can't express an opinion...Come on now. Really?

It is not necessary to live in Utopia to recognize the train wreck in your back yard.

The Americans I know seem to consider their system a hold-over from the horse & buggy days, and in need of many major upgrades.
They don't like the electoral colleges first of all, and wish the US would go to a straight count of total votes for presidential races.
Usually next on their hit-list is the party nomination / primaries process. They gripe quite a lot about how their party registration works, how long and drawn out the campaigns are thanks to primaries, etc.
For all that, I can't remember the last time I heard of a US proposal to reform things, aside from just the usual academic theorizing.

Look, the primary races and the Electoral College are both relics of the past. It is time that the U.S. join the legion of TRUE democracies and reform their federal electoral system. This is no longer the 19th Century!
Every four years - race by race - the rest of the world looks agog at the astronomical sums of money and years of campaigning invested in the U.S. Presidential campaigns. The results speak for themselves - a half-wit who never travelled outside the country prior to election has thrust the globe into turmoil because he had the right father and a whole lot of money behind him.
The self-styled Cradle of Modern Democracy allowed the vote of the common elector to be trumped by an Electoral College that is not only not understood by most voting citizens, but unheard of by many.

I have to admit, this is one of those things that really doesn't make much sense. I assume it was rooted in the idea that the candidates had to travel form state to state in order for people to hear what they were about.

In this day of Television, Radio and Internet access it does seem a odd custom now. However as with many things people tend to have a hard time letting go of traditions, specially when no one can remember why they did it.

I find irony in the fact that Canadians always feel they have the right to critique the way Americans run their country. I mean you have a problem with their foreign policy, sure, voice away, but its really none of our business how they run their government, or chose their president.

The entire premise that we have something to teach them about democracy is laughable, seeing as we live in a Constitutional Monarchy! The Queen may choose not to use her power in Canada, but legally everything still goes through her (or her representative).

Discussing our feelings on their internal decisions is one thing, but lets try and refrain from typical Canadian smugness in our criticisms!

Now might be a good time for voters to watch the film "The Saddest Music in the World".

The U.S. election already takes way too long. Maybe longer than any other democracy in the world ? Moving certain primaries forward in time is only going to make it longer. I suggest they move the early ones much later, and agree to start the whole campaign much later than it does now. I realise that the first thing an elected politician does is start running for the next election, but what the U.S. has now is truly silly. It has to waste huge amounts of money, better spent on other things.

The primaries system of doing things seems to be a bit silly, especially this jockeying to be the first one or two states that hold one. Maybe at some point they should just come to some sort of agreement on how to space things out more equitably. Overall this is just one of many anachronisms in their electoral system that are being stressed to the breaking point by modern elections. One wonder's whether they'll ever get a handle on fixing the electoral system and eliminating all these kinds of procedural tricks and tactics.

I'm only amazed it took this long for New York and California to get tired of Iowa and New Hampshire's opportunism.

A more sensible approach would be to hold both primaries on a single day sometime in May.

Oh... and while they're at it, establish a neutral electoral commission (like we have) that runs the elections and determines the ridings, and abolish the electoral college in favor of direct elections.

-Phil

I think it's a good idea to have the leader of the opposition elected well before the next election. It gives the new leader time to put her or his stamp on their party, and more important, it gives us a chance to see what kind of leader she or he really is.

I am very glad that I have had a lot of time before the next election to observe Stephan Dion, aren't you? I ask you: Did Dion bring, or even begin to bring the breath of fresh air he promised during his run for the leadership of the Liberal party? He's had enough time by now!

The more time we have to observe and listen to our politicians before we must decide whether or not to give them our authority, the better we are able to make such an important decision.

The key to a good democracy is a well informed public! And that takes time!

Yeah, a Super Duper Tuesday will only mean that the primaries will end earlier and the general election will begin sooner. This might mean that the public grows tired of the two front runners and presumed nominees for president earlier and less people might come out to the polls in November.

Moving states like California, Illinois or New York closer together would not necessarily esnsure than the eventual winners will be more moderate in that part activists and primary voters are usally more liberal (Democrats) and more conservative (Republicans) than the average voter anyways.

The real change ... more big state issues will take priority in the Oval Office from now on.