And the winner is……..

So, its the Primary Elections today in America.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to get on a soap box and endorse a candidate, but it did give me and a couple of my friends an idea.  Why not make politics more appealing to people under the age of 90?  I mean come on, its drab it’s boring and all anyone does is make fun of each other and mud sling, then recess is over and they go back to class….oh wait….that’s kindergarten…well same thing. Most (not all) people don’t like watching debates for the above reasons.  There’s no pizzazz, no showmanship.  So we decided to come up with two completely new and viable ways to elect people, and a third one that would just be fun to watch.  So, I am proud to now present you with John and Nicks new and improved voting systems.

The first one was mainly my friends idea, hence why I gave him credit above.  You take ALL the candidates, and put them in one house to live together.  Yup, Big Brother style!  Every week the least popular gets voted off.  Think about it, it would be great!  I mean could you imagine Gingrich, Paul, Romney and Santorum having to live in the same house with Obama?  I mean I know he’s the current President, but I’m sure he can take 5 weeks out of his schedule for “Big Brothers, Presidential Election Special”  I mean wouldn’t it be great to see them all start off as “friends” then get all catty?  Then in the second week, BAM! a surprise candidate, someone like Palin or Nadar,  just to keep things interesting.  Then by week three we would find out who’s the alcoholic, who’s the racist and most importantly for ratings, who’s the Snooki of the group!  Yeah, now we’re talking!  Now, we wouldn’t just let them live together, oh no, each week there would be a set of challenges.  They would have to compete against each other, perhaps even having to….uh oh….work together to complete a task.  Maybe escape from a zombie horde like in The Walking Dead, ok that’s a bit far fetched but it would be fun!  Then the public each week would vote out the least liked!  We would allow 5 votes per phone line and email, as an added plus, we would charge a dollar a call and put the money towards the deficit.  Not bad right? It would sure spice it up!

Now onto idea two, which was primarily mine.  I think we should do it American Idol style.  All the candidates get 5 minutes to give a speech each week.  There would be 3 judges that would give there opinion on them, they would have to judge on style, the speech itself and the candidates presence.  The American people would judge on the content themselves.  Also, they would each have a speech coach and a style coach.  There would be a stage, some tense music and lighting and Seacrest could host!  The voting system would be the same as above.

So that’s our propositions for a new voting system, sure there might be some kinks to work out, but think of the voter turn out!  For the first time in a century you would have a high turnout!  Anyway, think about it, it would be fun.  Anyway, have a good day and thanks for reading!  Oh and wait till we layout our plan for the House and Senate!

John

Presidents Day….hey wait, I thought it was Washingtons birthday?

If that’s what you thought then you are actually correct well, kinda.  Washington, Was born on the 11th of February, in the Old Style calendar, but the 22nd on the New Style calendar.  The day celebrating him took place between, if your wondering what the old style vs new style is, well, its not real important to this article, but the new style is what we use and the new year starts on January 1st.  Anyway so why is it now Presidents day?  Well, let’s see if we can find out.  Most of us know that George Washington was Americas first elected President.  Originally titled Washingtons Birthday, it was originally celebrated on February 22nd, in 1879.  Originally it was only celebrated in government offices in Washington DC, but it expanded to all federal offices in 1885.  It was implemented by an Act of Congress.  It was the first federal holiday that honored an American Citizen.  So why is it celebrated on the wrong day?  Well, Washingtons birthday was moved to the 3rd Monday in February back on January 1, 1971 by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.

The first time someone tried to turn it into Presidents Day was way back in 1951.  Harold Stonebridge Fischer from Compton, California.  He formed a committee called the “Presidents Day National Committee”.  Fischer thought that the office of the President should be honored, not just any one president.  He originally wanted March 4th, Inauguration Day to be Presidents Day, but that was overridden by the Senate Judiciary Committee (which had authority over national holidays). They felt that it was too close to Lincoln’s and Washington Birthdays.  They didn’t want 3 holidays so close together so they nixed it.  One of the original drafts of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act intended to rename Washingtons Birthday, Presidents Day in order to honor both Lincoln and Washington, It failed to rename it also, even thought the bill was signed into law in June of 1968.  So how exactly did it become Presidents Day? I mean we now know why its on the 3rd Monday of February, but when did the name change?  Technically it never officially did.  As with most things in today world, advertisers started pushing the term in the mid 1980’s, yup, thats where the name Presidents Day came in.  Through the years some states did officially rename Washingtons Birthday to Presidents Day, but it has never been federally changed.  So there you go.  That’s the short version of the Presidents Day story, there’s all kinds of observances and  such, but I’ll let you look into that yourself if you want.  So as always thanks for reading!

John