Here's a simple policy change that would radically change the political scene in the US: any candidate who has proved her viability (either by being backed by a major party, or else through petition or something) can do as much fund-raising as she can, from any sources she wants. No limits at all.
The catch, though, is this: all the money raised by all the candidates goes into one pot, which is then divided evenly among the candidates. So it's worth trying to get campaign donations, since a candidate has to do so in order to get her message out, but she will also know that all the other candidates will be just as able to get their messages out. Which means that the focus will have to be on the content of the message.
Of course, this wouldn't stop candidates from doing ugly smear campaigns - but there might be more disincentive. For one, an opponent will always have equally good opportunity to respond. For another, this system would have more candidates in play in most races, and it would be much harder to win with a negative campaign when you have to separately attack multiple opponents. If a Democrat and a Republican were just attacking each other while a Green or Libertarian candidate was getting just as much face time, the third (or fourth) candidate could easily come out looking much better. And... this means that we'd break away from some of the worst features of the current system without trying to instate a massive public-financing system.
Ta da.
Now I should stop rambling about things I know absolutely nothing about and go to sleep. Naomi returns tomorrow for our last week here.
Here's a moderately cute picture of us from our trip out to Postdam a few weeks ago:
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