I'm All Over The Map

Things we need in American politics:

•   A limit on the campaign season. Say… for no more than 9 months prior to the actual election. Clean up the airwaves and keep the vitriol to a minimum.
•   An aggregate time limit that any one individual can serve in all branches of government, maybe 15 years total. Feel free to mix and match. Spend four years as a Congress member, four years as a Senator and the remainder on the bench. Then you’re done. Period. No more life time politicians.
•   A “no compete” style clause, but in this case it would work like this: You may not enter any branch of government from a civilian position where your new position as “public servant” would allow you to benefit the business or industry you just left. Think Halliburton to Vice-President, in the case of Dick Cheney; or Geitner and Paulson, coming from the financial industry to run the Treasury. Automatic recusal would be de riguer, or you would be impeached, preferably tarred and feathered.
•   Conversely when you left office you would be automatically barred for a period of five years from interacting with any branch of government. Cut lobbying off at the knees and stop the revolving door in Washington.
•   An immediate end to the fiction of “corporate personhood”. It was nothing more than legal bullsh*t from the beginning, a way to open the floodgates to money that does nothing more than than warp public opinion. Because no one has more money than multinational corporations and big business, and who are *they* really serving?

If you agree with these sentiments, please pass them on.