OK, an idea for next presidential election, already technically feasible for most new Apple owners. For the purposes of discussion, we will assume nearly full adoption of DVD technology within the next 4 years.
Have the parties produce a DVD. They are responsible for putting together menus, fact-checking, and sending the DVDs. The candidates are responsible for submitting:
- 5 minute biographical sketch, including major works to date
- outline of their major policy positions
- a clip from a speech (up to 10 minutes)
Eligible candidates can be decided using whatever (not very stringent, it seems) criteria they use to determine who can participate in early debates. If someone has some major gripe that this format is, for instance, totally biased against people who have no major policy positions, they can argue for the addition of other materials for each candidate.
To avoid major discrepancies in the production quality of each clip, the same camera crew will work with each candidate. Candidates can edit their own material.
DVDs can be sent using any number of priority systems, to get some in the field, and solicit donations to send the DVDs to all registered party members.
The questions are:
- would anyone who didn't already watch coverage in the news watch this DVD? If you say no, even as the primary in their state gets closer?
- would something like this encourage people to vote for someone whose policies reflected their own priorities or who had a style they liked, or would people continue to do what they think everyone else is doing?
Also, name your dream ticket that would cause you to vote for your opposing party. Condition: both members of the ticket must be currently viable candidates (no one dead, retired or i would say too junior but John Edwards proves there's not such thing.)