The Green Hornet Lives!

The Green Party has a chance to move into one of the top two spots for 2012.  In other words be a contender.  Two times in our history a major party has died.  The first one was the Federalist party.  It died because it took the wrong stand on the War of 1812.  They were against it. The result was the so called "Era of Good Feelings", which led to the confusing election of 1824.  That led to the resumption of the two party system and more organized parties.  The second party to die was the Whig party.  They refused to take a unified stand on slavery.  That led to the rise of the Republican party.  The Republican party took out the Whig party.  Sorry for the history lesson, but the point is you can't make the loveseat longer.  You have to push someone out.  The Green Party  (in my analogy the Green Hornet) has to sting either the Republican elephant  or Democratic  donkey and get them out of the loveseat.  Providence has given us two issues that neither party wants to touch. (Remember the war of 1812 and slavery).  Term limits and campaign finance reform.  The two issues have been talked about for twenty years and really nothing has been done.  Okay McCain-Feingold, which the Supreme Court struck down. I believe that the majority of Americans would like to see term limits and some kind of campaign finance reform. Certainly, the  majority of moderates and independents.  No body in office now wants limits on terms or campaign finance.  If the Green Party could find some kamikaze candidates who would be willing to get these reforms enacted and then retire, then they have the chance to take out one of the two current parties.  Can the Green Hornet take out the two headed snake that runs our nation?  I think so.  The two issues work in tandem.  If you had a strong term limits law you could live with a weak campaign finance law. And vice versa.  Okay here is my idea for term limits: 12 years max for Senators and 12 years max for Representatives.  A partial term would count as a full term. Well, I stole this idea from the Contract with America.  You recall 1994? If you can't get the job done in 12 years, then why did we hire you in the first place?  On campaign finance reform, there should be full disclosure if nothing else.  We have the technology to publish contributions almost immediately at a low cost.  It should be done.  I would also like to see a rule such that a candidate for Federal office would have to raise half of the money from living beings in the state the candidate is running in. Pacs, Unions, and Parties would be limited to matching the money raised for a candidate.  Did that make sense? I am running for Senator in Maine.  Citizens of Maine donate 1 million dollars to my campaign.  That means that my campaign could only accept one million dollars in soft money from  Pacs, Parties, or Unions.  I hope that makes sense. This would make every election semi-local and semi-national.  I would like to cut out soft money all together, since by law Pacs, Parties and Unions don't vote, but we are living in the real world.  I hope the Green party will seize these issues and use them as a club to get into the game.  To have a 50-50 chance to govern.  It has happened before.  It needs to happen again.

In Light,
Enoch