{"id":74194,"date":"2016-10-18T12:08:02","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T16:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74194"},"modified":"2016-10-17T16:37:09","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T20:37:09","slug":"column-hobie-morris-the-musings-of-a-simple-country-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74194","title":{"rendered":"COLUMN: Hobie Morris, The Musings of a Simple Country Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hobie<\/a>
Hobie Morris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What Happened in Brookfield When the Hindenburg Hit the Titanic?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

by Hobie Morris<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

“Every joke is a tiny revolution. Whatever destroys dignity\u00a0and brings down the mighty from their seats, preferably with a bump, is funny.” \u2013 George Orwell<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In frenzied response to the most recent presidential debacle, my beautiful wife has painfully twisted my\u00a0arm to throw my well-worn, dirty, second-hand cap into the presidential campaign. By doing so, hoping for the greatest miracle of all time.<\/p>\n

I must candidly confess my campaign war chest is a few dollars less than my competition. In fact, my\u00a0available campaign grubstake is less than $10. (But didn\u2019t my historical soul brother Abe Lincoln win\u2014or\u00a0did he lose\u2013a campaign spending only $5?)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have special interest groups driving up Knight Road with dump trucks loaded with money to fuel my campaign. So like my life my campaign will be bare bones, no frills, with a minimum of hot air and\u00a0tons of honesty.<\/p>\n

My campaign staff is similarly thin. As of this writing, it consists of just three. My totally beautiful and\u00a0incomparable, loving and supporting wife and two sibling cats\u2014Maverick and Monty. While I haven\u2019t\u00a0discussed their active participation with them, I expect their loyalty with an extra handful of Wellness\u00a0gourmet cat food.<\/p>\n

As I look up from shoveling a mountain full of horse manure, which I spread liberally on our garden, my thought process comes to me in dribs and drabs, and in recent days, as I shovel buckets full of something well-known to politicians my political philosophy has coalesced into a plan.<\/p>\n

I dream about an America that is far fairer and democratic than it is today. I guess at heart I\u2019m an 18th-century Jeffersonian Democrat in the guise of a 21st-century simple country man. A renegade semi-Revolutionary, honest-dirt-under-his-fingernails-country-bumpkin, living in a nation where such characteristics have dinosaur connotations.<\/p>\n

If my presidential campaign grows beyond Brookfield\u2019s Knight Road, a dirt road and dead end, somebody\u00a0will ask me what I stand on and for. I can tell them candidly I stand on solid ground with my large, size 16\u00a0holey sneakers. Additionally, I stand for several important things that Jefferson, I believe, would\u00a0encourage us to change.<\/p>\n

If elected, I would work to considerably shorten the entire presidential election process. The present one is far too long. The entire process should take no more than six months total. The present election cycle length leaves\u00a0voters brain dead and semi-comatose by election time.<\/p>\n

The entire election system is disgracefully far too expensive\u2014grossly so. Buying \u201celected\u201d (really a farce) officials now is as common as shopping at Walmart. The entire political campaign process should be\u00a0publicly funded and strictly regulated, and equal for all. One possibility\u2014that each state would be\u00a0responsible for raising $2.00 from each of its residents. The common fund from all 50 states would be\u00a0used for all state and national campaigns, with the parties in each state responsible for its equal dividing.<\/p>\n

We desperately need a viable and competitive third national political party. It would give disgruntled\u00a0voters another choice. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were at one time three major national\u00a0parties: the Socialist, Progressive and Populist, plus the two traditional major parties. Again, they would\u00a0be equitably funded from the common fund.<\/p>\n

One pundit called the two major parties today \u201ctwo peas in\u00a0the same pod.\u201d Alternative parties should have a great and needed function to make democracy alive.<\/p>\n

If elected, I would work tirelessly to change the blatantly unfair present winner-take-all electoral college\u00a0voting system. There is absolutely no logic or fairness in the present system. It denies, among other things, the legal principle of one person, one vote. Under the present system, the plurality of a single vote\u00a0entitles the winner to every single electoral college vote in that state.<\/p>\n

The voters for the losing candidate\u00a0have lost their importance in the election process and democracy. (At the least the loser should be\u00a0entitled to a percent of the electoral votes based on the number of popular votes for the candidate.) The horror tales of dire possibilities are endless. Losers in popular votes have become presidents.\u00a0Elections should not be determined by a single Supreme Court vote or by the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

These and other scenarios are scary but real.<\/p>\n

The solution: the direct popular election of the president and vice president. Every vote and voter would\u00a0be important. Even including a third or fourth party, the winning candidate would need to receive at least\u00a040 percent of the popular vote. If not, the candidates with the two highest totals would have an immediate run-off to determine the winner.<\/p>\n

Although not perfect, the direct election system would eliminate many of the present pitfalls, including the\u00a0election of a non-plurality president. It would far better equalize voting power, both among and within the\u00a0states. Party competition within the states and nation would be increased as would voter participation,\u00a0where every vote would count.<\/p>\n

Finally, the most important thing of all, the president and vice president are the only elected officials at all\u00a0levels of government in the USA not decided by direct popular vote.<\/p>\n

If elected, I\u2019ll gladly jump off my manure pile and work tirelessly to make democracy far fairer for all of\u00a0you. Can I count on your vote?<\/p>\n

Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Happened in Brookfield When the Hindenburg Hit the Titanic? by Hobie Morris “Every joke is a tiny revolution. Whatever destroys dignity\u00a0and brings down the mighty from their seats, preferably with a bump, is funny.” \u2013 George Orwell In frenzied response to the most recent presidential debacle, my beautiful wife has painfully twisted my\u00a0arm to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23677,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}