I’m Running for President of the US

1/11/24

I’m announcing my candidacy for the President of the United States of America under the banner of the Smellbad Party. In this official capacity, I’m demanding the states recognize the party and my candidacy by placing my name and party affiliation on the primary ballots now being readied for the upcoming primary elections.

Crazy? You bet. You see, the two parties have effectively boxed out any real attempts at usurping their hold over our elections and hence, control over our lives. Add how primaries are paid for and conducted under the heading “How Political Parties Decide Election Outcomes”.

Unable to control themselves of all kinds of skullduggery, around the turn of the 20^th century, parties turned to their own in the state legislatures to one, use taxpayer money to pay for primary elections and two, keep themselves from cheating. Those nefarious actions included paying delegates for their vote and packing electors with unaffiliated voters. The party’s biggest fear was lacking a consensus candidate, those disenfranchised by the primary outcome, would choose to go rogue and challenge the selected candidate in the general election. A split vote would likely give the office to the opponent party’s candidate. We can’t have that so, let’s make sure we get one guy/gal to be our guy/gal.

The primary process only adds to the barriers of entrance for those seeking public office. Getting a number of signatures to first “prove” you are “viable”. Filing by certain time and paying fees, applying for taxpayer funding are just a few of the impediments to becoming a candidate. Foremost is the “support” of the party. President Washington knew only too well that the rise of political parties would lead to divisiveness and their singular goal of winning control would crowd out serving citizens.

So now we have political parties who have to win as to justify their existence, selecting who gets on a primary ballot. They throw us a bone by allowing us to vote for those they’ve selected giving us the feeling that we are in control. And the best part is we get to pay for this abuse. Primaries cost hundreds of millions, Money that the parties used to spend but now is on our backs.

And now you have a little more understanding of how we can end up with two past their prime candidates likely to be our “choices” for leader of the free world.