As you can guess, I'm no fan of Newt Gingrich. I think he is an ethically challenged, overly partisan hack whose basic policies center around the idea of "blame the victim." I found myself surprised, then, to be in complete agreement with him the other day on the current state of Presidential campaigns.  He called the modern campaign "insane" and further stated: "What's the job of the candidate in this world? The job of the candidate is to raise the money to hire the consultants to do the focus groups to figure out the 30-second answers to be memorized by the candidate. This is stunningly dangerous."

    The debates, besides the one at the AFL-CIO the other day (which I actually enjoyed) , are  not good for the American people. Each candidate gets to give an answer that consists of a soundbyte not related to policy, and is then quieted by an aggressive Anderson Cooper. In the post-game spin room, which Triumph the Insult Comic Dog called "poop valhalla," campaign spokesmen all claim that their candidate "won" while the mainstream media discusses who "looked most confident up there" and who was the "best dressed."

    Meanwhile, candidates start campaigning 2 years before the election, meaning many of them evade their duties in Congress and spend their time seeking large donations from people for whom they will grant favors if they win the White House.

    Newt is right. This is not healthy. His prescription is to eliminate campaign finance laws, so that candidates can get larger corporate donations and wouldn't have to worry as much about fundraising. I think we should do the exact opposite, for starters. Here are ways we can improve the integrity of Presidential campaigns:

-Public Financing: To end the problems of corporate influence, and the absurd notion of $1=one vote, we should outlaw campaign donations, and provide public financing. Now, so called "free speech" advocates will claim that this violates peoples first amendment rights, because, of course, money=speech (in case you didn't know, rich people have more "speech" than the rest of us). Assuming that candidates are most accountable to their donors, don't we want them to be accountable to the taxpayers and not the hedge fund managers?

-Debates of substance: The debates should be longer, and should have fewer candidates. No, we shouldn't exclude the Ron Paul's or the Mike Gravel's, but we should divide the candidates randomly so that debates can be with four candidates instead of eight. This way, candidates will have more time to debate policy, and won't be forced to reduce everything to a quick soundbite.

-Regional Primaries: There should be four regional groups which should alternate having the first primary every election cycle. This way, small homogenous states like Iowa and New Hampshire won't have disproportional influence in who our nominees are. 

-Whip the media into shape: We need to get the mainstream media to not constantly focus on the "horse race," the everyday ups and downs of political candidates. The media has a responsibility to focus on the policy differences of the candidates, and not inconsequential superficialities. Therefore, after the debate, Chris Matthews needs to be put in a dark, sound proof room, away from any cameras.

-Get rid of campaign spokesman: God, these people are so annoying. You can pretty much predict what they're gonna say: "While candidate X is working on behalf of the American people, candidate Y is playing partisan politics." Really? What a shocker! I don't understand the point of these people. They are doing a disservice to America by constantly spinning the twists and turns of the campaign to their candidates' favor. I say these people should end up in the room with Chris Matthews. They can talk about why their candidate won the debate, and luckily, no one will be able to hear them.