I'm a TCU Alumni currently living in Fort Worth, Texas who enjoys Golf, Labrador Retrievers and the occasional cigar. I run a political consulting company called (eightoneseven) Strategies, enjoy the fascinating animal that is the Internet and love a good iPhone app.
It seems to be a general rule amongst voters that politicians are one of the lowest rungs of people on the professional ladder. According to this article from Great Britain, politicians are considered the sixth most hated profession in all of the Britain (I’d imagine that stat to hold mostly true for the US).
This begs an important question: Why do people hate politicians?
Well, they are always asking for money, don’t ever actually answer a question and only want you to know who they are when they are running for something (I’m sure I’ve left somethings out, feel free to add more in the comments).
So why do we even have politicians in the US, if everyone hates them so much?
They are supposed to represent our interests at the three levels of government; local, state and federal. According to the principles laid out in the US and State Constitutions, we are considered a Republic and our interests are represented by a group of our peers who then vote in a legislative body about laws protecting and empowering us the citizens. The problem has become, these representatives don’t seem to care much what the people think of them or the system until election time rolls around.
And while I could probably write ten posts about what is wrong with America today, I’d like to propose something that could potentially make things a bit more civilized. It obviously won’t fix all our political problems, but it could lead to a reduction in the general hatred of politicians and our legislative bodies. So like my momma used to say, “Don’t point out the problem unless you’ve got a decent solution.”
What if instead of only talking to voters during “campaign season” politicans engaged their constituents all the time?
Instead of sending you 15 pieces of mail during a six-week campaign period, politicans sent 1 or 2 pieces a month year-round with regular, informative updates on their work.
Instead of knocking on your door 3 times a week to tell you why you should vote for them, why not come by once a quarter and actually listen to what you have to say?
What if politicians updated their constituents and voters 2 or 3 times a month instead of only when they are running for re-election?
I’m calling this the “Full-Time Election Cycle.” Now obviously their would still be a campaign season, but the information would not be an overload, instead it would supplement what a representative has been doing during the rest of year.
Instead of relying on the misinformation of slanted television news (Fox News, MSNBC, etc.), one-sided bloggers (Daily Kos, Fire Dog Lake) and ne’er-do-well phone calling campaigns, voters could have a general idea of how they are being represented in the respective legislative bodies. Therefore, more votes on election day could be cast based on a want for changes in substantive issues or how citizens felt they were actually being represented.
