Election Day Thought

   At 7 am, C and I drove to our polling place. I sighed in relief as I watched my ballot get sucked into the machine. I was grateful that campaign season is over.
  I am tired of the attack ads. There are no other kind of political ads anymore. For the last two weeks, I've been listening to an automated radio station to try and avoid all the ads.
  It bothers me that this is what we do these days. I'm embarrassed and ashamed. I think of all the children that look at this and wonder why adults tell them it's not OK to say bad things about other people when adults do it all the time.
  I read in the online news the the two major campaigns have retained lawyers in the event that there will be recounts. Instead of having to go through the same mess that we went through a few years ago I have another solution.
 I think that the person who got the most votes before any recounts are instituted should be the President. The person with the second most votes should be Vice President. That way we don't have to go through all the expense of recounts and all the acrimony that goes with it.
  This is the way it used to be done. In colonial times the first place winner was President and the second place winner was Vice President. I see nothing wrong with going back to this. It had many advantages. The candidates don't have to waste time picking a running mate and will never have to worry if that choice cost them the election. It cuts down on cost. Campaigns don't have to pay for two people to campaign in different locations.
  I think that this will be beneficial to the public as well. I think it would cut down on attack ads. It would be stupid to attack someone that you might have to work with. Maybe we could get back to the days when campaigns were more about attacking ideas and less about attacking people. I also think that if the two parties are forced to work together government would get things done. Congress would have no excuse to stonewall. The Executive branch could have a member of both parties in it. Right now there is no incentive to make the two parties work together. In the current political atmosphere working with the other side can anger supporters and lead to less donations. (The constituents really don't seem to matter to Congress these days.)
  This could make for some interesting political match ups. What if one of the lesser parties (Reform,Green etc.) got enough votes to be in second place? Maybe this would lead to more creative thinking and better solutions. We could become much better as a country. Who knows.... it could work......