The 21st debate in the Democratic race was bound to be a sleeper debate. After a year long bout of debates, whittling down from 8 candidates to 2, many issues had been brought to the forefront and some talked ad nasuem. But the 21st debate in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC and moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos (a former Clinton aid) treaded into new territory of yellow journalism.
The two-hour commercial laden event fell well short of even the loosest definition of a debate. Barack Obama with his front-runner status was inundated with a number of right-field questions. If you heard it on the radio you would have thought that Karl Rove penned the questions.Instead of relevant issues that face the Pennsylvania voters, we were left with questions about lapel pins, Bitter-gate, the Reverend Wright, the Weather Underground, and Capital Gains taxes.

For the first 45-50 minutes all the questions were fielded towards Obama and they were formatted in such a way that made you wonder if your cable box accidentally went to FOX News. During this moderator versus candidate format, George and Charlie constantly interrupted Obama, repeated questions over and over, and threw softballs towards Hillary. And in what appears to be even more bias, the audience camera pan hit Chelsea Clinton no less than seven times, but no Obama surrogates were focused upon.In the end it looked like a live swiftboating was in progress. While Obama did his best to fend off the onslaught, including some cheap jabs by Hillary, he was a bit taken back from the onslaught. He still stood tall and came off as unscathed as one could.
There was some relevant news from the debate. It seems that Hillary wouldn’t mind going into a full-bore war against any aggressor of Israel (or other countries). She also blew one of her Superdelegate talking points that Obama could not win against Obama as she stated “yes, yes, yes he can win”. Obama also clearly stated that he felt the 2nd amendment was an individual right.

ABC performed a terrible disservice to the people of Pennsylvania and America. With tactics that would make the RNC blush, they plunged into tabloid innuendo and old stories. There was very little talk on policy so for those undecided voters who cared about policy issues they will have to rely on websites and stump speeches to help them form their final opinion. One thing is for certain this debate was quite possibly the worst televised debate ever.

 We’re finally back at home and a little “settled in”, well as much as can be. So I started to sort through some of the photos I took of Kian and found these in the collection:

 It’s now time to welcome Kian Marshall Paris to the family. Born April 10th, 2008 at 10:32am he weighed in at 8lbs. 5oz., was 20″ long.

Hippidy hoppedy, Xaia takes her first picture with the Easter Bunny.

Since our founding fathers had declared freedom for the US, our country has had growing pains that should have caused anarchy and mayhem till the country was shattered and unrecoverable. Through civil and global wars, our country has stood the test of time for over two centuries. One of the things that have made this country great is its ability to shape laws over time to reflect social norms, unforeseen subject matter, and technology; this ability to adapt to modern times has allowed our country to thrive through the best and worst times throughout our history.

But with the great ideas that the US has been built upon, there are still great injustices, mass corruption, and lethargic participation from the majority of Americans. We do not have to continue down this path, and I feel that the time has come to re-examine our election process and rights some wrongs that have come into play over the years. I started a thread in the Soap Box of ArsTechnica to flush out some ideas and the results below are a list of some items I think we can implement in our lifetime with hard work and a strong united voice.

Registration
There are a number of conflicting state laws that defines eligibility of its citizens to vote. From purging of voters off registration rolls to barring ex-felons to vote for life, we need a set of standard laws for the states to adhere to. I would also argue that any US citizen of voting age with a valid SSN should be eligible to vote. It could also be argued that the voting age be lowered to 16 (which unfortunately would require a Constitutional Amendment) since a lot of what is happening in the world will directly affect them and they have no voice. Maybe with the lowering of the voting age schools will focus a bit more on civics and our political landscape.

Debates
Debates for the highest seat of power have been somewhat of a farce. The audience is filtered or silenced. News reporters tend to ask soft or irrelevant questions. It’s time we conduct real Town Hall debates where the candidates are asked the tough questions and answer them beyond 30 second sound bites.

Vote by mail
Our elections have become more complex over time, and as it’s been proven in the past voters can be easily confused by a hard to follow ballot. I propose that for the Presidential Election we implement a secured paper ballot (example here), and have a federal agency and independent auditor overview the process. Open source optical ballot readers can verify the initial count, and then all ballots are hand counted. If there is a 0.05% deviation from the automated count and the hand count, steps would need to be taken to ensure that the election is valid.

Popular Vote
While the Electoral College is built into the constitution, some clever legislation called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been circulating around the states and has become law in MD and NJ. The NPVIC keeps the EC intact, but they pledge their EC votes to the National Popular Vote winner.

Closed Primaries
The two-party system has stagnated ideas and has placed a stranglehold on compromise. While the two-party system can’t be banned why not force the Democrats and Republicans to choose their candidates without state interference. Other parties can do the same and they should submit their winners to the FEC no later than June 1. To get on the ballot you need more than 0.5% of eligible voters support, which should remove “Mickey Mouse” off the ballot.

Stage 1 Election
The winners of their parties are placed on a ballot with other parties that have. There should be a two week period to vote for your candidates though preferential voting (choose your top three candidates in order). My example ballot shows what that could look like.

The top two winners face off in the General Election.

Stage 2 Election - Top Two Run Off
The top two winners of the Stage 1 election face each other. The winner receives the majority National Popular Vote.

These are just some examples of solutions we can achieve to reform our election process.

So almost everyone has seen by now the 3AM ad that Hillary used to give the perception that she is ready by using fear politics. Well do you know that the girl in that ad is all grown up and is a precinct captain for the Obama campaign? Here is her “endorsement” ad for Obama:

I wonder if Hillary has pondered this equation. If she wins by some Super-delegate grab, she is likely to alienate the most dependable voting group in America, African-Americans because, let’s face it, she is now trying to win on the pillar of entitlement. She has not won in any bracket other than Super-delegates, and if the election is stolen, African-Americans will look at this moment as a coup for their support. Seriously the first serious African-American candidate to be in the lead, who has inspired millions, and if she takes that away, that is it. HRC would never win the nomination for the simple fact most African-Americans will not vote for her. Hell the repercussions could last many years, decades, or even longer.

Thinking of this makes me wonder if she cares one iota for the party. I mean hell she was a Republican before she switched. Will her friendship with McCain be great enough, and her dismay at Obama be strong enough, that she will risk the lifeblood of the party so she can lose or so she can hand the presidency to McCain?

The same thing would happen if Obama was trailing like her, many women would feel outraged and could not vote or split. No let me correct myself, if Obama was in the same position as Hillary is right now, he would be a footnote, he would be long forgotten already. But Hillary has the name brand recognition and the deep ties into many in the party, so they keep her campaign on life support when it should have been abandoned by now.

If Hillary continues to go on, she will lose, she will divide the party further, and she will taint any good she has done. At the beginning the battle was for who has the best policy and since SC it’s been how much damage the campaign can do to Obama. Negative campaigning may work for some people, but at at terrible cost. There is a reason Obama has inspired people, a reason that crosses even into some of the Republican party, the partisan bickering and endless swift-boating needs to stop. Hillary has ignored that, and her campaign has spread lies and innuendo (NATFA and the Obama garb pic) just to name two small instances. Why? Your lies will get caught, as they were in the debate and now in your WH papers.

If this was a positive campaign I would say rock on Hillary. Even if the stakes were against you work your best. But instead you have shown the worst side of politics, the desire to win at any cost. That is a shame, I once held you in high regard. I know no politician is perfect but you have sunk to the depths I don’t know you can ever recover from.