Hello everybody,
I would like you all to know that I am announcing my candidacy for president — you can consider this the official start of my campaign. I am currently 16 years old and a junior in high school, so — as you can tell — I still have some time before I have to start worrying about Iowa.
I will be a pragmatic, issues-oriented candidate. Now, obviously, I cannot be sure exactly what the salient issues of the day will be by the time I start the primary process; however, I can tell you what issues I plan to address most aggressively: education, infrastructure, and voting rights.
Education:
Forgive me for the cliché, however it is entirely true to say that education is the bedrock of any strong democracy. I firmly believe that the intelligence of a representative government is reflective of the intelligence of those who are being represented — namely: us, the American people. As such, it is absolutely integral for the issue of education to cease being tertiary, and to be put in its rightful place at the center of the national focus. At the risk of being accused of naiveté, I believe that it should be the policy of the government to make education the first and foremost priority. A huge investment in education, is, essentially, a huge investment in ourselves. A more educated citizenry will not only make us more competitive in the global economy, but it will also give us a better foundation for solving the problems of the future.
In order to achieve this improvement in education, I believe that a massive overhaul of the current system is required. As president, I would launch an exhaustive inquiry into our school system to evaluate the contemporary state of the system and use the gathered data to plan a course of action. Using this data, we would be able to put every potential strategy on the table and examine each for its effectiveness given the actual situation. For more detail on my view of education, see my previous diary entry. More specifics on this to come.
Infrastructure
What is my view on infrastructure?— Transit, transit, and more transit. High speed rail, intercity rail, light rail, and so on.
An increase in public transit projects will provide jobs both in their construction and continuing maintenance.
Light rail and intercity rail will reduce our population's dependence on inefficient, carbon emitting automobiles for their primary mode of transportation.
A national system of — true — high-speed rail will provide people with an alternative to airline travel.
Transit will revive the areas in which it is implemented, luring businesses to coalesce around new, efficient transportation hubs.
Not only will public transit provide us with these tangible products, but it will also instill in our nation a sense of pride and progress not felt since the construction of the interstate system half a century ago.
Updating and adding to our national infrastructure is an urgent priority. While the creation of many of the types of projects that I listed above will undoubtedly not be cheap, the payoff — both economically and environmentally — from their construction will far outweigh the price.
As president, it is my hope to initiate the construction of a national high-speed rail system on a very large scale. Piece by piece, we mustupdate rail corridors and build new tracks. Focus should be taken off of maintaining our current outmoded system and instead be placed on new projects designed not only to meet, but to surpass — and set — the standards of the 21st century.
Voting Rights
While this may seem an odd topic to specifically address, it is an area in which our nation retains embarrassingly archaic — and discriminatory — practices. Our current system of voter registration must be scrapped entirely; the current system is outdated, inefficient, and, in most cases, downright confusing. Free elections and the ability to vote are the most basic and vital tenets of democracy. As such, we must ensure that our system is rid of all inefficiency. However, the laundry list of differing rules and regulations throughout the country creates an unnecessary hindrance to the functioning of our democracy, discouraging people from voting by requiring them to locate and fill out arcane papers and forms.
I can speak from personal experience on the confusing nature of this process: I currently attend a boarding with students from all over the country. Being a volunteer for the Obama Campaign in the town in which my school is located, I organized a registration drive for the high percentage of our school that was over 18 and eligible to vote. Far from being the easy process I had hoped, I was forced to run to my computer each time a student who lived out of state wanted to register to vote. Furthermore, attempting to locate the absentee ballot information for each student was not only confusing, but disheartening. While eventually most of the students were registered, it made me realize the problem with our current system.
For this reason, I believe that we need to reinvent our registration system.
First, the system must be centralized: voter registration will be a service covered by the federal government. As such, the federal government will be in charge of registering citizens to vote. There are several steps that the government will take to register people:
- A new government agency will be created, the Federal Bureau of Elections (FBE), that will handle all national election-related issues, including voter registration, in the stead of state governments; the FBE will be subject to investigations at any time at the request of Congress.
- A new policy will be implemented whereby, upon filling out any government form that provides the information equivalent to current registration forms (ie: registering for a driver's license), a person will be automatically registered to vote.
- Dedicated registration forms will be made available for completion on the internet for all those not registered under the previously mentioned policy/those who might need to change personal information when necessary.
- Paper versions of registration forms will also remain available to those who need it.
Second, a simple and clear set of rules and regulations for election days and voting must be created that does not vary by region. Among these new rules will be:
- Election days for both the presidential and midterm elections will be moved to the weekends — both Saturday and Sunday — to provide people with ample time and opportunity to vote; polling places will have nationally standardized hours stretching from morning until night (6am-7pm).
- Voting machines will be standardized as to optimize efficiency; a study will be conducted to definitively prove which type of machine is the most efficacious (however, at this point, I am in favor of the optical scan machines).
- State governments and local administrations will not be able interfere in the voting process (for national elections) in any way before, during, or after election days; all services will be handled by the Federal Bureau of Elections.
Third, absentee and early voting will be standardized. National, "no-excuse" mail-in voting will be made available to all those who request it (requests for mail-in ballots will be made at the same website where one can register to vote [see above]). This will also be how American citizens overseas and those overseas in the Armed Forces will vote.
These three issues, education, infrastructure, and voting rights, are among the issues that I plan to champion most directly as president.
These three issues, if addressed, I know will make our nation stronger.
My plan for my route to the presidency looks like this (I'm aware that things seldom go according to plan, however it can't hurt to have a specific course in mind):
-Go to college, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. While in college I plan on volunteering for campaigns for both the 2010 midterms and the 2012 Obama reelection
-Go to grad school, most likely law school
-Get a job in a 2016 presidential campaign
-Run for State Legislature
-Run for Congress in my district
-Run for Senate from my state
-Run for President
So, when the time comes, I'm counting on the support of Kossacks to help me win the nomination — and, eventually, the election. Someday in the future we will be able to fight together to help our great nation further improve. We will strive to reinvigorate America by eliminating ignorance, by connecting our cities, and by sweeping away inefficiencies that harm some of the most basic tenets of our democracy.
I'll now open the floor to any questions or comments. Additional issues aside from these three will be covered in later diaries.
Thank You