Norman Thomas, six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
American presidential election campaigns are absurd. Absurdly expensive. Absurdly long. Absurdly structured. And absurdly narrow in the range of ideas and options offered to a nation with an absurdly low level of voter participation. If ever there was a time to rethink how this country chooses its chief executive, this is it. And we don’t mean that in some rhetorical sense. We mean that this is the time, right now—two years before the first caucuses and primaries, thirty-three months before the November 2016 election names the forty-fifth president—to get serious about the process. That’s why The Nation is launching what we call “Project 45,” an initiative that refuses to accept the assumption that the 2016 campaign has to be dictated by insiders. We will identify and promote the reforms (and reformers) that offer the promise of a more open, inclusive and democratic process.
Why worry about 2016 now, when there are so many other pressing issues? Because the power brokers who profit from our system’s many imperfections are busy locking down the next election.
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Once the nominees are chosen, we will pay attention to serious independent and third-party candidates, who in the best tradition of Progressive Bob La Follette, Socialist Norman Thomas and Ralph Nader, present radical ideas that will eventually be viewed as common sense. We’ll draw attention to ballot access and debate access fights, recognizing that voters deserve a broad discourse, and that front-runners become better contenders—and better presidents—when they’re forced to expand their frame of reference.
Read the full article here.
Thanks to the Maryland Green Party for the link.
My response to this was shouting FUCK YES! I hope they carry through with their promise. We need media outlets like The Nation to put pressure on the CPD/duopoly to reform. Our work is not in vain, folks!