Patty Limerick is all for campaign bloviation reform.
Iam not by nature a complainer, but I am going to experiment with that role, temporarily.
Having to endure more than 18 months of people giving speeches about why they are running for president strikes me as an affliction that none of us should have to bear.
In the spring of 2015, we have all been cast into another long and winding river of un-illuminating, un-enlightening, and un-inspiring oratory, diverting attention away from serious solutions to serious problems. Though people once used the phrase “the election season,” this time of vexation now encompasses two springs, two summers, two falls, and one-anda-half winters.
As I launch into a lament over this tremendous waste of time, attention and money, I am well aware that this complaint has become as tiresome and tedious as the campaigning itself.
And that brings us to my entirely excellent remedy for the electoral phenomenon we will endow with the acronym BLOB: Burdensome, Lackluster and Oppressive Bloviation.
It may surprise some to learn that, despite its abundance of rules and procedures, the Environmental Protection Agency does not currently regulate bloviation (defined by Merriam Webster as “speaking or writing verbosely and windily”). So the door is open for a thoroughly bipartisan plan for a solution, endorsed and administered by all citizens who want the best for their nation.
We begin by designating the first Monday of every month as Meaningful Campaigning Day. Civically minded people agree to pay close attention to what the presidential candidates say on that day.
The first Tuesday of every month will be Blovation Monitoring Day. Members of a bipartisan Bloviation Monitoring Commission will rate the candidates by only one measure: their ratio of the effective and thoughtful proposal of solutions to problems to content-free statements, assertions and declarations.
Since the members of the Monitoring Commission will be deeply aware of their crucial role in getting representative democracy back on the tracks, they will stay focused on their important mandate. Moreover, the members of the Monitoring Commission will act out of a stance of compassion toward the candidates, recognizing that they are entrapped in a system they did not design, and therefore deserve help in finding a route to redemption.
And then, after the monthly blovation ratios have been announced, the citizens of the nation will, in a unified voice, say to all the candidates, “See you in four weeks! We’re eager to hear what you have to say when next month’s Meaningful Campaigning Day rolls around!”
If they so choose, the candidates can then spend the rest of the month chattering away among themselves (or, as former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson has characterized this brand of verbal behavior, “babbling into the vapors”). If they are inclined to a better choice, the candidates can invest that same amount of time in figuring out how to achieve a better ratio when the next Monitoring Day comes up.