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 Campaign Bracketology
by Tom Campbell
March 27, 2008
All the attention given to basketball’s March Madness and bracketology (a new word being used to predict the tournament winners) started me thinking that perhaps we need a similar process for determining election outcomes. While I care about who wins the national collegiate basketball tournament, it won’t affect my taxes, or the roads I drive on, the education our children receive, or any significant decision in our state.
We need a way to generate as much energy and enthusiasm for our political campaigns as has been generated for the “bracket pools” going around most every office this time of year. As luck would have it we stumbled on the solution while scrolling for something worth watching among the 150 cable channels we pay 100 dollars each month to receive. We will start a television show patterned after “America’s Got Talent.” What to call it? “Election Madness?” “Dancing with the Candidates?” “We perform, you elect?” Better still; let’s have a contest to name the new show.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a candidate doing an interpretive dance, stupid pet tricks, spinning plates, fire baton twirling, or even magic, instead of calling each other ugly names? It would give us the chance to see another side of the candidates and may help us in differentiating them. I don’t know about you but it is really, really hard to distinguish the differences between the Democratic candidates for president and governor, and most folks don’t even know the names of the four running in the GOP gubernatorial primary.
We can already hear the protests that this would be demeaning to our honorables, but can you honestly believe the circus we now endure each election cycle is any more dignified?
Just consider the possibilities. Candidates appear on the show; voters call in (giving their secret decoder password) and each week one or more candidates are eliminated until we have a president, governor, or whatever office you choose to fill. In North Carolina we would save at least three million dollars in the costs of printing ballots, paying local precinct workers, and compiling the votes. With little more than a laptop computer at a wifi coffee shop, we could make quick work of the electoral process, saving us all the pain of the misrepresentative TV ads that fill the airways. I already have carpel tunnel thumb from pushing the mute button when those obnoxious ads come on. It is possible we could get rewarded by watching something entertaining instead of seeing how ugly people who are supposed to be our leaders act toward one another.
Don’t you think it would be far better to see a politician twisting balloons into animals than slinging mud at one another? Bring on the balloons.
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