True, non-partisan candidates/officers can still have fights, and local governments can still have a lot of politics that mess them up. But, it does help reduce the political polarization that seems to almost cripple some communities.Darwin wrote:Even my previous residence, Marina, CA, tiny as it is (population: 18,343, 8.7 square miles), has had some very nasty non-partisan elections.
For cities, state codes prevent non-charter cities from partisan elections. I suppose it could with counties and state offices as well.Note that even with a much smaller population, national elections seem to have always led people to form a few large parties. I suspect that the only way to prevent this would be to have a law prohibiting people from forming formal parties. But, I don't think you could constitutionally prevent people from forming groups and meeting to support a particular candidate. Even though the system supports this now, it seems to have originally evolved through the actions of the people.
Right, and there are no non-partisan positions except sometimes judicial and precinct officers, etc.Califonia state elections commonly see gubernatorial candidates from about eight or ten parties (Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, ect.), but most people vote for the Democrat or the Republican. No one forces them to do this. Whether this tendency to go for predominant groups is a flaw in human nature, or not, is open to debate, but it seems to be a fact that it exists.
That's the problem, creating a system where special interests are not involved. When big money is involved, there is a high risk of corruption. The media is the key, and volunteers.Let's say I decided to run for President under a non-partisan system, how would I go about it? If I didn't have a party, would I have to fund the campaign myself?
The point is to open up the system so the two super parties don't have the power to exclude other candidates from total participation, like the debates, etc.I can imagine starting out with a few thousand candidates and having maybe a dozen votes to pare down the group. I'm not sure the final result would be any better than what we have now. How long would it take a voter to figure out which candidate is best? (Since I'm obviously best, would most voters find it easy to realize that fact?)
of Kerry apparently breaking the rules of the contract and pulling a cheat sheet out of his pocket while his back was to the audience? He's got that silly grin like "hey George, I'm smiling...don't think about my hands right now"