Fiscal responsibility

Has escaped the RNC and the DNC, apparently.

Now that the wicked witch of the west wing has formally withdrawn from the race (and no, she won't be VP, either) (if you need to ask why, google "vince foster") that means that the two major parties have exactly one candidate each in the race for POTUS.

So, since both parties are SO trying to out-responsible the other when it comes to wisely spending money, why are they both continuing to hold national conventions? Why fly all the delegates in, pay for hotels, meeting halls, parties, wine, dine, and woo $upporter$, why spend the MILLIONS of dollars each party will collectively spend so they can either vote for the party's ONLY candidate or not vote?

An election with only one person on the ballot is just stupid. Holding a national convention to vote, hosting multi-night pep rallies and chanting and cheering buffoonery when there is only one candidate on the ballot reminds me more of Saddam's elections than what should be hosted in America.

I honestly think that if a party can't come up with at least three viable candidates to go through all of the primaries, and then hold a convention where all states' delegates, having seen each of them under the political microscope for a year, can then select which one they want to throw their vote behind, if they can't find three good men, then that party has reached the point where it no longer can claim a viable representation of the American people.

There are Three Hundred Million of us little people. The best we can do for choosing a leader is "Sweetness and Light" or the "Jug-eared Reconquistador from Arizona." These are the two people who can best represent to the world who we are and what we believe in? If that is the case then we are well and truly screwed. I think each candidate seeking a party nomination should have to put up a 25% stake of their personal assets when they seek the nomination, which, if they stay in the race through the convention and then don't receive the nomination, get their stake back. If they quit early, they forfeit the stake and it goes into the general fund, or the hooker and booze fund, or goes into the dirty tricks and mudslinging fund. Then maybe we could see all the candidates for a party's nomination last longer than the first few primaries.

As it stands, they stay in the race until they either lose successively or lose big in a primary, someone finds out about the dead hooker from that weekend in Vegas, or (in Fred's case) they realize this popularity contest isn't about character as much as it is platitudes. Sometimes, we get really lucky and a megalomaniac gets involved and refuses to step down, and every "we're still in this" rally just becomes more and more pathetic and sad, not unlike a solitary unsold pantsuit hanging on the rack at goodwill.

But I digress. My point, already made, is that a national convention for either party at this point seems at least frivolous, and definitely worthless. Could the delegates (much like the candidates) just phone it in? If this is how the party elite are going to use the money they've raised, can we really trust either party with using our money--the money they've taken--wisely?

--Chuck