After The Dust Settles

After all the dust settles on this presidential campaign, there are a few things that need to be resolved.

Voting Procedures - The way people vote and the requisite procedures seem to be vastly different from one state to the next or even from one precinct to the next. I suspect there is a reason why the feds haven't regulated this and it has to do with Federalism. That's fine, but the states should consider joining a consortium that helps to determine recommended voting processes. Then the states themselves could legislate one standard way to collect and count votes.

Campaign Finance Reform - The campaign finance reform advocated by guys like John McCain didn't work. In fact, it made things worse with a false dichotomy between so-called hard and soft money. Campaign finance reform needs to be reformed. Instead of making things more complicated and restrictive, each campaign should be required to publicly disclose all donors and amounts prominently.

Big Media Collusion - There was the CBS News forged documents debacle and the corresponding "Fortunate Son" campaign. Then there was the missing explosives in Iraq red herring that Kerry beat to death in the closing days of the campaign. There was definitely collusion between big media outlets and the Kerry campaign. This needs to be investigated and if necessary prosecuted.
As far as the media is concerned, I'm not advocating any legal restrictions on their freedom of speech, but clearly something needs to change.

Tax Exempt Status - It's illegal for non-profits to engage in political advocacy. UNLESS - you happen to be a Democrat then it's still illegal but everyone just pretends that such advocacy doesn't occur. I'd like some enforcement of the law here. What about all of those churches that had a candidate preaching from the pulpit? How about the statements of their pastors in support of a specific candidate? And let's not forget the NAACP - also a non-profit - that explicitly supported John Kerry. Let's either enforce the law or decide that it's okay for non-profits to engage in such activities. The current double standard is ridiculous.

Election Night Follies - It seemed that all the networks, including Fox, were reticent to call some states for Bush even when it was very clear he would be the winner. Yet other states were called for Kerry with much less data. Furthermore, it seemed that no one wanted to declare Bush the winner. His projected electoral vote total remained at 269 until the next day.

Conservative Dollars - Okay, you Conservative Republicans instead of sending in all those donations to the Presidential and other campaigns, why don't you start collecting money to allow for starting a news network that, at the very least, will strive to report the facts objectively. While you're at it - make it a Broadcast network, not just available on cable. Fox is okay but it's still very little competition for the MSM.

Illinois Republicans - Will the Illinois Republican party do any soul-searching now about the wisdom of having Alan Keyes run for the Senate? The boneheads that made this decision should be replaced and someone who knows what they're doing should start working on finding and positioning a viable candidate for Governor. The next election is only two years away and Blogo is looking very vulnerable.

Democrats - They've had great success with candidates from the south. You'd think they would've known better than to nominate another Northeastern Liberal. Hopefully, they'll do a little thinking about the direction of their party. It seems that there aren't too many moderate Democrats left anymore. Instead, the party is controlled by a variety of liberal special interest groups. In this election there was such a vast difference between the worldviews of the two candidates that it felt like the future of the free world rested on making the correct choice. It would be really nice if the difference wasn't quite so stark and I think it would make the whole process less rancorous.

CNN - I spent a few minutes watching their election coverage and it was horrible. Larry King? Give me a break. The guy is a dinosaur more accustomed to doing softball celebrity interviews. They had these little microphone things attached to their heads - the kind similar to what they use at the fast food restaurants. Then their electoral college map seemed kind of primitive. When the guy standing in front of it would point to a state to change it's color ... there would be this long pause before it finally switched. I think the local news station in my area could do a better job than these guys. I suspect they're ratings will be very similar if they don't get a better producer.

Fox - Juan Williams is a weasel. I realize they need to have a liberal on their panel as part of being "fair and balanced" but can't they find someone who's a little bit less of a party hack?

Blogs - National Review had a fairly decent thing going with frequent updates and some behind the scenes revelations. I didn't see any other blogs with much in the way of good information. As much as bloggers hype themselves as being a replacement for the MSM, they were all still watching the major media for their information.

Web Info - There was an electoral map over at Newsday (www.newsday.com) that was just incredible. It was a flash animation that would automatically update itself every few minutes with the lastest counts for each state. I wasn't impressed with Fox News' web coverage or any of the other major media for that matter.

Hopefully, some things will change in this whole election process. In 2008 it should be fun to watch Hillary Clinton and John Kerry tear each apart.

My favorite picture from the campaign,