ah, democracy!

It's very difficult to turn on a television these days and not have the opportunity to participate first-hand in a democratic process.  Seemingly, the trend in the US seems to have stemmed from one of the first hit reality television shows, Survivor.  The participants voted which other participant would be selected to leave the island, effectively terminating their participation in the event.  This process was repeated each week in order to narrow the selection down to a single winner.  The democratic process was used in somewhat reverse order, but represented the general process nonetheless.  But it wasn't enough...

Then came American Idol!  The fundamental advancement in democracy here was expanding the vote.  The vote was not solely up to the participants (can't imagine that they were banned from voting for themselves) but it was expanded into your living room.  All you had to do was call a special number or send a text message to vote for your favorite act. Now I think you can even use the Internet! This is the essence of a true democracy!  The only difference from our voting system is that each person could vote more than once. Or perhaps that is not different...

It's good to see that our political system in the great United States of America is keeping up with the times.  Here we are now, at the end of a lengthy process where candidates have been trotted on-screen, allowed the opportunity to perform, and then the people were driven out to vote for them.  Unfortunately, they aren't too modern and we actually had to go to a special location to vote.  Each major political party had their own tribe and we elected a "Grand Poobah," so to speak.  The most exciting part of this whole process was that they each had a live, semi-season finale where they each announced their winner! These semi-finales were essentially large fiestas that were televised and took place over several days.  Several days exceeds the attention span of the average American viewer, so I have taken the liberty of editing them down to something that the average US citizen can handle.

Since it was first chronologically, I figured we'd start with the Democrat National Convention that occurred in Denver.  This video focuses primarily on the party platform and the proposed solutions that were developed at the convention.  Pay attention! This is important and riveting stuff!

The following week, the Republicans had their own convention in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis & St. Paul. Who doesn't love twins?  This was effectively the message that we take home from their televised events.

The best part is that it's not even over!  Like any good television series, they just keep us glued to the tube wanting more!  Now, we get to witness the really fun part!  All day, every day, until November 4th, we get to see more and more performances by the respective elected Grand Poobahs from each tribe until it's time for us to vote yet again!  You have to keep us riveted and I'm sure that they will! In the meantime, since we're between seasons for the good shows anyhow, enjoy the ride!