Bernie Names Names

[dreamnightwind]

44. I think that has possibilities

I've long been considering if there isn't some way, through the web, to turn the campaign spending against these candidates. Some kind of online public forum that could vet the candidates, handle their stances on the issues, allow discussion of them, allow citizens to batch requests for information from the candidates who would then respond to the largest batches, and also provide a simple look at candidate's finances, perhaps each candidate could be represented by an avatar of their physical appearance, clothed NASCAR-style with their donors and backers.

Ideally such a thing should be publicly funded from federal election money. Barring that, some organization like CREW or Common Cause could host it.

Also perhaps as a condition of leasing cable or broadcast bandwidth, broadcast and cable channels could be required, during the runup to elections, to run some summary of this information a certain percentage of their airtime, so that non-internet users would still get the benefit of seeing the information. It would help counteract the misleading political advertising.

Just riffin', it could take many forms but I agree with your post and think there is a possible solution somewhere in there. I realize your post was more about social media, whereas I have been thinking more generally about a web forum. Maybe it could take both forms, or some other we haven't thought of.