Promises, promises. The promises cannot be realized even by the most sincere candidate because political parties have a lock on the electoral system. Caucuses and primaries are party-based. No political party elected in this way can have enough unity to vote a coherent program into law.

Many Americans saw Barack Obama as an agent of change. With his enormous mandate, he could not fulfill his promises, even when the Democrats had a majority in both houses. Divisions within the party were simply too great.

A progressive agenda might grow legs if the focus of millions of American voters, regardless of party, centered on the issues that unite rather than divide the electorate. Abortion, contraception and gay rights, for example, are each of vital importance to large numbers of people. Making them litmus tests for national candidates is nationally divisive. Further, it is questionable whether those issues can ever be resolved by national elections. They are values that may be more responsive to education than to the political process.

Campaign reform that significantly reduces the role of money in elections, reforms that produce a fair and simple tax code and elimination of lobbyists’ ability to “buy” congressmen and women are examples of national issues that could return democracy to America.

If these reforms were supported by a bloc of similarly believing candidates, a significant majority of voters could put them in office. A government so elected by the people would be one of the people and for the people, as well.

Hubert Kauffman, Oxford

Copy the Story Link